Persist in Folly
by HappierThanIDeserve
Summary: Appointed tutor to Princess Myrcella Baratheon, Lenna Manderly finds herself unexpectedly thrust into the inner circle of the Lannister family. She quickly comes to rely on the queen's Hound, finding him, like his Lannister employers, to be much more complicated than he seems. As affairs in Westeros worsen, they both find themselves in the center of a storm they barely understand.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: the usual disclaimers apply: I own nothing. This is my first go round after (many) years of lurking. This was written for my own amusement and as an experiment in which an original character was created by accident. I have borrowed (liberally) from the books and the television program, and make no apologies for how horribly marred they both are. I took what I wanted and left the rest. If you want canon of either ilk, please go elsewhere. All criticism related thereto will be ignored. However, I do hope you enjoy. We have a long, dry year ahead and this may help ease the burden of waiting.

Lenna I

290 AC

Gulls wheeled overhead, their sharp cries ricocheting off the ruddy stone walls of the Red Keep. Even from the distance, the young girl standing at the ship's railing could hear the birds as they broke the stillness of the day with their shrill voices. She was standing quietly, her hands folded on top of each other as she looked at the castle that was to become her home. Her hair whipped in the mild harbor wind, stinging her eyes and making them water. _It's the salt wind_ , she told herself, _they aren't true tears. Not really._ Despite the balmy afternoon she shivered, raising a hand to grasp the neck of her cloak to draw it tighter around her.

She was dressed for cooler weather in her gray cloak and a woolen gown of slate blue. Everything about her was muted, from the colors of her eyes to the dull, pained expression of her face. Pale and drawn, the only vivid thing about her as she stood on the deck was the wild undulation of her dark hair, which seemed to have taken on a life of its own as it flowed around her in the salt breeze, mimicking her disquiet.

"My lady?"

She turned from the railing, startled, turning to the man standing a few scant yards away. It was clear to her that he'd been trying to get her attention for some time, but she was far away in her thoughts. Hundreds of miles North, in fact.

"Forgive me, captain, I must have been thinking too loudly," she replied, wryly twisting her lip. The captain, a stocky White Harbor native with impressive blond whiskers, nodded back. "Are we to dock soon?"

"Yes, my lady," he replied, looking almost relieved. "We should be disembarking within the hour."

"So soon." She looked back up at the soaring ramparts and spires of the capital city, so unlike the sturdy white walls of her own New Castle. Her own home now lay thousands of miles away. They had been at sea for nearly three weeks, catching a bad storm as they rounded the fingers which set them behind. She was grateful for it. No delay could have been long enough for her.

"My lady," the captain said again awkwardly. She shook her head, clearing away her thoughts like dust before a broom, forcing her to look back at him again with a smile.

"I should prepare." She touched his elbow lightly as she passed, making her way quietly below the decks.

In her cabin she sat on the bunk up with her knees tucked up under her chin, looking the child that she felt. _You are too old to sulk like a petulant child_ , she told herself. But she didn't feel petulant. She felt heartsick. She fought the urge to cry, pressing her forehead against her knees and squeezing her legs tight with her arms until the urge passed.

Preparing took all of five minutes. She threw the quilt back over her bunk and shut the lid of her traveling case. The rest of her things were below decks, including her little gray palfrey, her gift for her nameday. She didn't expect she'd get to ride her much now.

She had risen on that fateful nameday as she always did, dressed quickly with a stomach full of excitement, and skipped down the wide stone stairs to breakfast like a girl younger than her fifteen years. The servants had laid out a feast of oatcakes, honey, and berries, all of her favorites, and even her brothers were coming to break their fast with their little sister.

Wendel and Wylis Manderly were nearly twenty years their sibling's senior, and Wendel's daughters were more like sisters to her than nieces. Helenna had been born well beyond anyone's expectation, especially Lady Adalyn's and her husband's. Wyman Manderly had already been silver-haired when his lady-wife gave him their only daughter, and he had been smitten with her from the moment she was placed, quiet and wide-eyed, into his arms.

When she traipsed into the room that morning of her fifteenth nameday, they were already all seated and waiting for with false attitudes of annoyance painted on their faces. She tried valiantly to affect the manners of a lady, but everyone had crumpled at her efforts, Lenna included. It was a family joke that Lenna would rise when Lenna would rise, though she had tried to get up at a decent hour so as not to keep them waiting, even if it was her nameday.

She sat between her little nieces, Wynnafred and Wylla, and together the three girls attacked stacks of hot oatcakes pure dripping with honey. They were giggling and laughing when Maester Loren, an unassuming man of middle years who wore his Maester's chain heavily, came rushing into the room on quiet footsteps. He glanced at Lenna and spared her a tight smile. She was his very best pupil, he said, and Lenna knew him well enough to know something wasn't quite right. His everyday air of seriousness had become grave.

"A raven, my lord," he said quietly as he came to Wyman's elbow.

"Could it not wait, Maester? Can't you see it's Lenna's nameday breakfast."

"I do apologize, my lord, but-"

"Spit it out!"

"It's from King's Landing, my lord," Loren said, proffering a little scroll he'd kept hidden in the sleeve of his robe.

Wyman Manderly looked at the seal on the scroll. From her seat just a few places away, Lenna saw that it wasn't the stag of the king, but the lion of the queen. Her father went scarlet beneath his snow white whiskers. Lady Adalyn, a regal woman with a fair face and dark hair now streaked with white, reached a hand over to cover her husband's.

"Read it before you have an apoplexy, dear," she said smoothly, shooting her daughter a roll of her eyes.

Despite being fifteen, practically a grown up, Lenna had never been told exactly why her father hated the queen and her family. If anyone did anything foolish or mean, he always asked if that meant they'd taken up with the Lannisters. It was said with humor, but there was a steel to his gaze that made it clear to her that it wasn't an idle jest. Between that and the fact that he steadfastly refused any and all overtures from the capital, it was easy for an intelligent girl to figure out that something was amiss between her family and theirs.

By the time he had finished reading it, Wyman Manderly was shaking with rage. His face was no longer red, but had gone white.

"Papa?" Her voice shook as she called to him, genuinely afraid he would have the stroke her mother joked about.

He didn't respond, instead handing the parchment to his wife with fire in his eyes. Without a word he rose and walked the length of the room, resting his forearm against the mantlepiece of the enormous fireplace.

Wendel and Wylis looked at each other and then back at Lenna, who sat stunned between her nieces. The younger girls had not taken any notice of what the adults were doing and had continued to tuck into their breakfasts, still chattering away to each other like magpies.

"Helenna, my dear, this is a message from the queen," her mother said. Lenna turned her face only to find her mother's face carefully set in the same way she schooled it when she was listening to arbitration in the Merman's Court and trying to remain neutral. It scared Lenna to have that particular expression turned toward her as it meant her mother was fighting a battle against her own feelings.

"She has done you great honor, my dear," her mother continued softly.

"Me? What kind of honor, and why would the queen-"

"She has invited you to become her ward, a lady-in-waiting. In King's Landing."

Lenna felt like she'd been plunged into deep water. The whole room became still, and she desperately tried to keep her focus on her mother's face.

"I'll decline of course." Even in her own ears it rang hollow.

Wyman Manderly turned from the fireplace, and to the shock of his daughter there were tears streaming down his face.

"No, my girl, you'll accept. You'll accept and be on your way as soon as may be." Obviously overcome, he strode from the room, her brothers hot on his heels as Lenna remained in her seat, staring at a stack of oatcakes that would now go uneaten, her mother stoic across the table from her even as the two little girls giggled and played without any idea about what had just happened.

At present, a knock on her door made Lenna jump. She'd been so lost in that awful memory that she had lost track of time. She got up quickly, stretching her legs and shaking out her skirts. On the other side of the door stood the captain and a burly sailor. She stood aside for the man to pass to fetch her traveling case as she stepped out of the cabin for the last time.

"Do you want to leave that?" the captain asked, gesturing to the little shelf beside the bunk. On it lay a thick book bound in red leather.

"Thank you." It came out as an almost desperate gasp as she turned to run back for it, nearly barreling into the sailor carrying her heavy case. She grabbed the book and hugged it to her chest, hastening after the captain as they made their way above.

A small group of guards stood on the quay, as did her little palfrey, Prim. The horse looked pleased to be in the sun again after so long on the ship. Two beautiful high-born women sat astride white palfreys. As Lenna walked down the gangplank she smiled at them brightly, remembering her mother's advice: if you looked pleased to see whomever you meet, chances are they will be pleased to see you.

Instead of smiling back the two looked at each other barely concealed disdain. Lenna withered a little. When she approached Prim one of the sailors webbed his hands to help her mount. She waved him away with a smile, swinging herself up into the saddle with ease. From the expression on the ladies' faces, this was the wrong thing to do.

Lenna thanked the captain and bid him farewell, and before she was ready the little group turned toward the long road to the Keep. The two ladies said nothing, either to each other or to her, riding ahead of her and giving her their backs. Lenna sat up straighter, thinking about the iron rod her mother had bid her imagine to keep her spine straight. She was surprised that under the hurt she also felt a surge of anger. She had done nothing to warrant being slighted, save arriving at all. With a bolt of righteousness she tilted her head up, her sharp chin set.

There was so much to take in. They were brought in at the River Gate, through the square where the fishmongers loaded and unloaded their carts, their voices echoing off the houses and paving stones like schools of leaping mackerel. If she'd been with her parents or even her nieces she would have made some delighted comment, and the fact that she wanted to made her throat constrict.

The city was teeming with people going about their days as the party wended through the crowded streets. A few common folk looked at them as they passed, but most of them carried on with their business without even a glance at the group of guards and young ladies. Lenna didn't mind, it gave her the chance to observe them unawares, rushing about with their baskets and parcels, mothers with babies wrapped in swaddling, filthy, rambunctious children weaving in and out of the paths of horses and people getting into mischief.

By the time they reached the Keep she was smiling again. From an early age she had been merry. Her mother laughed often and as loudly as her boisterous father, and though Lenna was far quieter than either of her parents, she had inherited their good-natured ways.

"The best remedy for a heavy heart is a good laugh," her mother would say, and Lenna would smile even when she didn't want to. Just like she didn't want to now, but made herself keep her chin up and her eyes open as they were admitted into the Keep itself.

Prim was taken off to the stables, and the silent ladies beckoned Lenna to follow them. The large interior courtyard was constructed of glowing reddish-gold stone, which seemed to glow from within rather than reflecting the sun's light. It was warm and and exotic to Lenna, child of the North as she was, filled with potted trees and flowering plants.

She looked about her as she followed the ladies through beautifully wrought cloistered passageways, wide and gracious with delicate stonework that looked like it might shatter if touched. She detected graceful motifs of bird and leaves and flowers, chiseled so skillfully they looked plush rather than made of stone. She was delighted, until she spotted a hidden skull among the foliage, cleverly concealed by the stonemason in a cluster of carved leaves. The death head grinned at her with empty sockets. The pleasure fled, replaced with the same familiar sense of foreboding that had dogged her across the sea from her home.

At last the two ladies stopped before a heavily guarded door. The palace guard stood aside for them, their spears clanking heavily on the stone. One opened the door for them and the ladies entered, Lenna pausing behind them. Anxiety bubbled in her gut as she looked through the door, realizing too late that she was about to be presented to the queen of the Seven Kingdoms. Her mother would have been livid at the state of her dress and hair, but she'd been given no warning that she would be taken straight to the queen's solar.

One of the ladies turned around, annoyance written on her otherwise fair face, and Lenna Manderly pulled her courtesy around her like she would a winter cloak, put one foot in front of the other, and stepped into the court of Cersei Lannister.


	2. Chapter 2

Sandor I

Seeing Tywin Lannister in the queen's solar made him wary. When he'd come on duty, the Lord of Casterly Rock had been seated at his daughter's desk, his own work spread across its surface. He was so engrossed in his scribbling that it was if the customary crowd of courtiers wasn't even there. Cersei, however, appeared intently aware of her father, looking at him from where she sat decked in pink silk, a golden goblet dangling from her hand. It had been her focused gaze that alerted him to Tywin's presence. He was well practiced in observing a room as soon as he entered it, and today her quiet in the sea of everyday chaos was extraordinary. The appearance of the queen's father was anything but normal, and he felt himself tense in expectation of something as yet unknown.

Since he'd been a boy, Sandor Clegane had been vigilant whenever he encountered his liege-lord. The man always looked at him with a tight-lipped grimace which he intended to be cajoling. To others, perhaps, it would have looked like a smile. All Clegane ever noted was that it didn't reach his predatory eyes, the old lord looking at him as if wondering how best to put him to use, assessing him like a tool to be implemented.

He'd found plenty of ways to put the oversized Clegane lads to use. They were a matched set in their physical monstrosity and temperament. Both enormous and sporting vicious tempers, he and his brother had found a warm if mercenary welcome in the Lannister army. Sandor had made his first kill sporting Lannister armor. He'd been perhaps twelve or thirteen, but he could still remember the exhilaration of standing above the body of that young Targaryen soldier, his innards spilling like rubies in the grass, shining in the sun. That was the day he found his calling, his aptitude for carnage noticed by the great Lord of Casterly Rock himself.

"Hound." The familiar tone was flat and raspy. Tywin didn't even look up from his scribblings as Sandor crossed the long room. When he'd been younger, he'd thought the old man had eyes in the top of his head, always seeing, always noting. An unnerving skill, it was one which Clegane had studied in his years of Lannister service, perfecting it in himself. It was still disconcerting to have it turned on him, making him feel a bit like a boy again, caught just off guard.

"Your grace," Clegane said, bowing shallowly to the queen first. He turned to face Tywin, but the old man was still focused on his work. "My lord."

Cersei fluttered a hand at him and he took his usual position, back to the wall and eyes beginning their slow sweep of the room. In that stance he could watch the room at large with little difficulty, ostensibly to ferret out potential threats. He'd never had to draw his sword since he'd arrived in the Red Keep, a fact which daily frustrated him. At first, he'd been honored by the position, enjoying the fine set of armor made for him and the private bunk in the barracks. Now, he ached to have something, anything, to run a sword at except a dummy or some green city guardsman not worth his time.

Instead, he got to watch the royal children grow. It was tedious when all he wanted was a good fight. They were fine children, but not exactly difficult to guard. A waste of his talents, though he worked hard in the sparring yard when he was off-duty. Most of his days were spent watching Prince Joffrey play and the princess sleep. Not exactly what he'd imagined doing as a young soldier. Currently, Joff was playing with a set of blocks on the floor, the infant princess asleep in her cradle. Joff had been a pleasing child, but the older he grew the more spoiled he became. Clegane thought he'd grow into the kind of boy he'd hated in his own childhood: cruel, manipulative, and less clever than he gave himself credit for. The princess, however, might not turn out so badly. She hardly ever cried, and Sandor liked looking at her with her little rosebud mouth, chubby cheeks, and wide green eyes. He hoped she didn't turn out to be as cruel as her mother.

"How long does it take to ride from the harbor to the Keep?" Cersei had risen and walked over to her father. When Tywin was near, you'd think she was a girl of twelve and not a queen and mother twice over. Her tone was almost petulant.

"Cersei." Tywin's tone remained flat, his eyes still remaining glued to the parchment before him.

"She's already late enough as it is. Some nonsense about storms in the Fingers. All this trouble for a little no-account lady…"

"Wyman Manderly always does things in his own time and to his on specifications. I will be surprised if his daughter is any different." This time Tywin did glance up at his daughter.

"Why did you want me to send for the girl anyway? She's too old for a ward, and too inexperienced for a lady-in-waiting."

"Give the girl a chance," Tywin replied, grinning unpleasantly.

Cersei sighed heavily, taking another long sip of wine.

 _It isn't like she had anything better to do_ , he thought darkly. In his five or so years of duty to the royal family he had come to think Cersei Lannister was lazy. He supposed she was a queen, and before that she had been the highest born lady in Westeros that wasn't already royalty in her own right. Still, it seemed to him she did little more everyday than gossip and drink, which she did continuously from morning until nightfall. Even he, fond of wine and ale as he was, kept as many sober hours as he did drunken ones. She acted as if her life of luxury was some terrible bore, not even giving her children the attention they deserved.

Joffrey knocked down yet another attempt at a tower. Here he stood bawling and red-faced because he'd been building too quickly, furious that the world didn't reorder itself to his ever little wish. Where other children might have stooped to try again, Joff must have thought it was some great injustice if the screaming fit he subjected them to was any indication.

Tywin Lannister finally looked up, shooting the boy a withering look that would have shut him up if he'd seen it.

The door opened, catching Clegane's attention in spite of the din. Two of the queen's ladies appeared. He didn't know their names but recognized them both by their expressions. He wondered if they would be amused to know that despite their fair faces they both look like they had shit smeared under their noses. They bustled into the room with haughty grace. They made it almost to the dais before they realized they'd forgotten something, a third girl he'd never seen before who still stood wide-eyed at the door. With a roll of her eyes and a hitch of her skirts, one went out again, seizing the girl by the elbow in a way that was barely polite.

She was fifteen or so, no more than five years younger than himself, almost a full-grown woman. She was older than the wards who came at seven or eight, but she was younger than most of the queen's ladies. Though tall, a hand's breadth taller than the woman who dragged her before the queen, she seemed to shrink in her reticence. She had a fair enough face with the palest skin he'd ever seen, her dark brown hair a startling contrast. It was not quite black, hanging thickly to her waist in locks and waves that curved and undulated like seaweed.

He observed her closely, but was startled when his eyes reached her face again, not because of her comely features, but she was looking straight back at him. He froze for a moment, a hot blast of shame racing through his chest, seeing himself as he knew she must: a hulking brute of a man with a catastrophe for a face, looking her up and down like she was some Flea Bottom strumpet. Where another lady might had glared at him, she looked back openly, clear-sighted and perhaps a tad curious. Most people didn't look at him for more than a few seconds before the scars put them off. He knew what they looked like. On top of being physically enormous, he was also enormously ugly, half his face covered in angry red and black scarring, like his features had been made of wax and someone had held a flame to them too closely.

He held her eye, waiting for her to look away. She didn't. There wasn't a trace of revulsion in her face, and it occurred to him that she might do better at court than the queen seemed to believe. That ability to control her face would get her far if she had the wit to back it up.

Then she smiled. A bolt of something sharp and warm went through his chest. It wasn't a grin, or even a fully-formed smile, but it was there. Her lips quirked up and the corners of her eyes scrunched, a dimple appearing in one cheek. He couldn't remember the last time someone had actually smiled _at_ him rather than just around him. It was probably one of the children, and certainly not some pretty highborn girl come to be presented to the queen. He was so taken aback that his own lip quirked up against his will.

Lady Shitnose tugged impatiently at her elbow and the moment was lost. The girl remembered herself. He could see her catalogue her posture, her back straightening, her shoulders relaxing back, her chin lifting until she was standing regally enough to rival their imperious queen. Oddly, her hands were clasped in front of her. She was holding something, he realized, a book bound in red leather. He wondered what on earth had possessed her to bring something with her, though by the look of her she had come straight from docking. He quickly noted that her hair, lovely as it was, was windblown, and her dress was not at all suited for a first meeting with a queen, a rough everyday material instead of a finer silk. He hated standing on ceremony more than most, but even he had made himself presentable the first time he'd walked through those doors.

Cersei Lannister was looking down on the girl along the tip of her nose, a little smirk marring her otherwise exquisite features, her hair a cloak of liquid gold around her shoulders. She was beautiful, he knew, but he'd long ago stopped seeing it. Some people's insides matched their outsides. Some people's insides were the opposite of their wrappings. Cersei Lannister was the latter, her disdain universal with very few exceptions. He was sure she was relishing the girl's disheveled appearance. He'd heard enough to know she wasn't excited about this young lady's arrival, though he didn't know why. She seemed almost gleeful as the girl approached.

The girl kept her eyes down, then at a proper distance she sank into a low curtsey, waiting on the queen to bid her to stand. During this time, Tywin Lannister had risen from where he sat at the desk and moved to stand beside his daughter.

"Lady Helenna, we had begun to despair that you would ever reach us." Cersei flicked her fingers and the girl rose, hands still clasped over the book but raising her eyes. "I trust you had a pleasant journey."

"Save the storm in the Fingers, your grace, it was. I am sorry for the delay, but it couldn't be helped," she replied evenly. Her voice was quiet, richer than he'd expected. He thought he could detect a faint tremor in her fingers against the leather, but nothing came through in her voice. Her face had been arranged into the picture of amiability, that dimple winking at him again.

"How do you find King's Landing, my lady?" Tywin asked. He hadn't taken his eyes off the girl since she'd arrived, his shrewd gaze taking in every shabby detail, searching for something, though Clegane hadn't the slightest clue as to what.

"I don't think, my lord, that I've seen enough of it to have formed an opinion, but I enjoyed the ride from the quay. The Fishmonger's Square is delightful. So many people to see."

"But smelly," the queen said.

"Yes, your grace." She laughed a little, and it was a charming sound. He wondered where the wide-eyed girl standing at the door had gone, how she had managed to put her aside in the twenty paces it took to cross from the door to the dais. When he'd seen her first, he'd thought for sure she'd be some stuttering mess. This girl was poise personified, acting as though she were arrayed as finely as any other woman there.

"What have you there?" the queen demanded, pointing to the book.

The girl seemed genuinely startled, and he'd wager she forgot she carried it at all. She looked down with her dark brows knitted together.

"I- it is a book, your grace."

He almost smirked at that. After the first fumble, she said it decisively, like she had planned on it, not lamely as if she'd been caught unawares.

"I can see that," Cersei said with a hint of irritation.

The girl continued to look thoughtfully at the book as if it would give her the right answer to the question. Her fingers pressed against it a little more sharply and she looked up to see the queen regarding her with an imperiously arched brow.

"It is my favorite, your grace. I've had it since I was little. I thought, perhaps, this was foolish of me, but I thought perhaps the little prince would like it." Her face had suffused with a blush that impressed him. He knew it to be a falsehood, he smelled it like he'd smell a three-day old fish in the larder, but her voice rang with sincerity. He wondered if she made herself blush to cover up the lie, or if it was the result of embarrassment in it's telling. He didn't know, but he did like the way it looked splashed across her pale cheeks.

"How sweet." Cersei looked faintly pleased.

"I like children, and-oh, your grace, it was foolish of me, wasn't it?" The girl squeezed her eyes shut, the blush deepening as she babbled. Cersei's face was astonished, and Clegane wondered which way the pendulum of her temper would swing. The girl was speaking to them so familiarly, with such informality, that it would either charm them both or count against her heavily. There was no way to predict which way it would go.

"Childish, but not foolish. It was kindly meant," Tywin said, and some of the a harshness had gone out of his face. He seemed almost disappointed, a soft version of his grimace emerging around his mouth. "Then again, you are a child."

"Well," the queen said, "I know you must be tired from your journey. You'll be escorted to your new room, and we'll expect you to wait on us at dinner."

"Yes, your grace," the girl said, ducking another low curtsey. The two ladies who had escorted her in went to her side and she turned to follow them from the room. He was surprised when she looked for him, clearly on purpose. When her eyes found his she smiled once more, but this one was a little fainter, tired. He didn't return it.

The doors had barely closed behind them when Cersei turned to her courtiers.

"Leave us."

The men and women trickled out, leaving only the queen, her father, the children, and, of course, Clegane to watch over them all.

"Not what I expected," Tywin said, raising an eyebrow as he looked at the closed door through which the new member of their household had passed.

"Nor I. Though, I do not know what I expected."

"I had rather thought we'd have to break a child of Wyman Manderly's. I didn't expect a girl so...unaffected. Charming, even." Tywin raised his eyebrows as he took another sip from his cup.

"Well, from what I've heard she must take after her mother."

"I could detect little of father in her, but you've never met the man." His voice, which had been almost indulgent when talking about the girl, hardened. Whatever lay between Tywin and the Lord of White Harbor, Clegane felt certain it was personal.

"She was-"

"Obviously well-bred. Mannered. Wyman married Adalyn Locke, if I remember correctly. Old family. The girl must take after her. How old is she?"

"Fifteen."

"She holds herself better than many girls her age. She'll be fine, and you'll have Manderly in your pocket."

"I don't know why I would need him at all. His isn't even a Great House…"

"They are richer than the Starks, and almost as powerful as the Freys. He commands the only port North of the Reach, and the ships that sail from it. His loyalty to Robert is unquestionable, but he has no love for us. Perhaps he will be more amenable in response to his daughter's elevated position."

Cersei humphed. "She was drab. She won't be happy here."

Tywin had tired of his daughter's waspishness, turning to her with an icy glint in his eye. "Since when are we concerned about the girl's happiness? I want Manderly in line. He will never be your ally, so make him your servant. He won't so much as breathe wrong if she's here."

"Perhaps we should bring girls from every recalcitrant house to be our ladies-in-waiting."

"It isn't a bad idea daughter. If it works this time, it may work again," Tywin replied, sipping from his cup deeply.

"So, what should I do with her now that we have her?"

"Nothing." It was disturbing to see Tywin Lannister grin. He had once been a handsome man, but years or cunning had whittled away at the flesh of him, leaving behind a dessicated elegance. Clegane thought, not for the first time, how easy it was for fair-faced villains. Most were so taken with their outsides that they neglected to listen, to notice, to understand, until it was too late.

"Nothing?"

"Yes, nothing. Have her wait on you when you wish, and other than that, let her idle away her hours like anyone else here. She's not a pawn so much as insurance. She's not important enough to be given extra duties, so leave her be. Let her figure it out. She doesn't seem to be quite as vapid as others. I doubt, though, that she'll make many friends. That first impression isn't likely to be forgotten."

"She looked positively wild," Cersei replied blandly. "Her hair, Father. Is that the famous Manderly stubbornness?"

"Perhaps? More likely the girl is naive. Brash, unthinking. You know how our Northern friends can be."

"Yes," Cersei replied. "I should keep an eye on her."

"Probably unnecessary, but you might want to watch her ravens, if she gets any. Wyman always liked to meddle."

"I can't very well open them for her," the queen replied.

"Then don't give them to her at all. Have them brought to you. Let her think her family has forgotten her. Bend her to your bidding, whatever you want, Cersei. I can't imagine a more fitting insult to Wyman Manderly than to make his precious daughter a Lannister woman."

"Again, father, why are you so concerned with Wyman Manderly?"

"I think of it as an old competition renewed."

"Because they're rich? Because he commands a port?"

"Something like that," Tywin replied, chuckling into his wine.

Cersei cast an exasperated eye at her father. He looked up and his face became serious.

"Remember, daughter. If they aren't with us, they are against us. Even a fishbone can kill a king."

"There are plenty of houses that do not care for ours, and we leave them alone."

"Perhaps look at it as an experiment. What works on him, stubborn brute that he is, may work on others. You are queen, my dear, but remember how that came to be. Another sat there before you. Nothing about power is guaranteed. The war for it is never over, even if arms have been laid down and the treaties all signed."

Tywin drained his cup and left it on the table, walking out of the solar and leaving the queen looking thoughtful in her chair.

Clegane was perplexed. He didn't often understand the schemings of the Lannisters, but even he thought this one seemed more petty than more. Tywin's answers were evasive and satisfying, and it appeared more and more that this girl had been called from her home as a plaything, Cersei and Tywin planning to bat her around with the paws like their damn sigil would a mouse.

He glanced at Cersei and was dismayed to see her looking at him shrewdly. He hoped she didn't want to talk to him. Sometimes she made him talk, peppering him with questions he didn't know the answer to or didn't understand.

"What did you think of her, Clegane?"

"Your grace?" _Shit._

"You heard me, dog."

He racked his brain trying to think of something to say that wouldn't open an inquisition. Cersei seemed to appreciate his surveillance, often asking him what he had noticed about this person's behavior or that one's demeanor. He catalogued his observations: the girl was pretty, not beautiful. She had a nice smile. She was quiet. She was smart. The first two would open dangerous doors for him, the last seemed safer.

"Quiet. The girl was quiet." The words were forced, like they'd been pulled out with iron pincers.

"Afraid?"

"No, nervous but not afraid. Smart."

"How so?"

"The book. She spoke well. She was kind." Though her excuse about the book had been impulsive, it had been effective. More than that, it rang true because she offered no more than she was willing to actually give. He had no doubt she would have gladly handed it over to the prince if she'd been bid.

"Kind?" Disdain dripped from the word on the queen's tongue.

"She said the book was for the little prince." He wished she would stop needling him. She sat with her chin in her hand and a faraway look on her face. He fell silent, clenching his jaw. With a quick intake of breath the queen look back at him.

"I'll give her a few weeks, but then I have a job for you, dog."

"Your grace?"

"I want to know how she spends her time. See what she gets up to, the kind of company she keeps."

"I'm not the best candidate for a spy, your grace." He wondered what she was thinking, sending all of him after a slip of a girl.

"Are you refusing an order?"

"No, your grace."

"You're my Hound, Clegane, or have you forgotten? Of all the people in this Keep, I trust what you tell me almost as much as I trust my own family. More, probably."

He didn't know if he should take it as a compliment or not. It felt like something of a condemnation.

"Of course, your grace."


	3. Chapter 3

Lenna II

Lenna thought if she had to listen to one more inane conversation about silk ribbons or hair pins she would run mad.

Everyday it was the same. She rose at daybreak to wash and dress. "Attending the queen" at breakfast meant standing ready with a pitcher of wine. In the morning. Before noon. Her pitcher was frequently empty by the end of the meal. Lenna didn't know whether to be disgusted or impressed. The queen never so much as stumbled. Either the wine was weak or the queen was simply used to its constant consumption.

She was permitted to grab what she wanted when the queen was finished, though she had to quickly follow her out the door. She and the two dozen other young women called to these particular duties went to the solar as soon as they had choked down their breakfasts. _Then the real excitement began,_ she thought wryly. It began with an hour or so of embroidery. Lenna wasn't a great artist with a needle, but neither was she unskilled. She was proficient enough, but staring at the threads made her head hurt if she was as it too long. After the hoops and silks were put away, perhaps one of the women would play the lute or sing. Lenna was grateful that no one paid her any attention when it came to this part of the morning. She had a passing fair voice, but the efforts of trying to keep up with an inept lutenist would have made her snap. Best no one knew of that particular talent. Once the queen had tired of her maids imitating howling dogs, they sat until dismissed. Idle. Granted, the others chattered away like popinjays, but they wouldn't even look at Lenna. Each time she would open her mouth the contribute some girl or another would beat her to it, talking over her until she simply stopped trying.

Sometime before lunch the magical gesture would come, and the girls would scatter off. She had tried to follow the first few days, but they eluded her. She'd returned to her own room and sat on the fine canopied bed looking out on her view of the city and the sea. She read the book of fairy tales cover to cover two or three times, cursing to herself for not bringing more books with her.

Then it would be time to return to the hall for dinner, where she would take turns with a plump girl from the Westerlands as they held the pitcher and ate their own dinners. She wagered the girl had been told not to talk to her and rather regretted it, if her half-smiles and frightened eyes were any signal. Lenna wondered that she should warrant such strong censure, not able to fathom what she had done to deserve it. Her house was not a major one, but they were rich at least. She supposed it could be because she was Northern. As far as she could tell, she was the only girl from north of the Neck. She told herself she didn't mind being so left out, but it did sting, especially when she had to sit in the hall by herself after dinner until the queen was ready for bed. Sometimes it would an hour or two of nothing but listening to the others talking and giggling while she sat silently waiting.

For the first few weeks, Lenna tried to do what was expected of her cheerfully. It wasn't particularly hard, but between the boredom and the gaping hole of homesickness centered in her chest, every moment was a struggle. To heap insult to injury, the harder she tried the more the others seemed to scoff at her.

She was naturally friendly. She smiled as easily as she breathed. That wasn't apparently the way it was done in King's Landing, her overtures turned away with upturned noses or deliberate ignoring. She'd never felt so little in her life. She had free command of the New Castle at home, all of its inhabitants familiar to her from the maester to the guards to the scullery maids, not to mention her father's vassals. Here it seemed she was beneath the notice even of the little wards of seven or eight.

That very morning, one of them had looked her up and down and had the audacity to comment that she was glad Lenna had learned to brush her hair.

If it hadn't rankled her so much she would have laughed. Instead, she sat with her hands folded in her lap and tried to be interested in the other girls' conversation. Perhaps she could learn something of the King's Landing ways that would help her to find her footing. From what she could tell, a thorough knowledge of silk and hair styling was the key to power.

She did enjoy watching the little prince, though. It surprised her that Cersei kept the children with her in the solar. She didn't have much to do with them, but they were there. A space on the floor had been carpeted for them, baskets of toys overflowing all around. Joff played away while the little princess slept, building towers and fighting with invisible foes. It made her heart hurt to see him playing so by himself, with no other children to cavort with.

Behind them, more often than not, was the Lannister's personal guard. The other girls spoke of him in the cruelest of terms, seeming to take delight in who could relate the worst rumor. It seemed he drank rather a lot and tended to get into fights. Neither of these facts surprised Lenna. Everyone in King's Landing seemed to be a bit of a drunkard, and she had seen a fair few drunken rows in White Harbor at the banquet table to know this was remarkable. It wasn't so unusual to think he was like other soldiers. By the looks of him she wagered he was a rather fair fighter. She certainly wouldn't want to be in his way if he were to get into his temper. The scowl alone was enough to stop most in their tracks, and it was almost a permanent feature. No, it seemed to her that the girls enjoyed being afraid of him, of rendering him less than human. They talked about him like he was some beast instead of just a man. It made her skin crawl. She didn't like the they spat his nickname from their tongues: the Hound. They said it like it was repugnant, wrinkling their noses. She guessed they didn't know its only ugliness lay in their own lack of charity.

The queen called him Clegane unless she was in a foul mood, which was about half the time. If she were feeling particularly vile, she didn't even bother with Hound, substituting dog or cur, which Lenna found revolting. To her dismay, it didn't seem to phase him in the slightest.

His ability to disappear into the background was extraordinary, especially given how eye-catching he was. He was exceedingly tall, built like a bull with the most impressive set of shoulders and the biggest arms she'd ever seen. His upper arm was as big as her thigh, and she was no waif. He looked out of place in his dark gray plate in a sea of colorful courtiers, but he seemed to be deadly serious about his occupation.

His eyes were constantly roving, and more than once she had caught him unintentionally. At least, she told herself it was on accident, but she wasn't sure. So far, he had been the only person other than the queen who would look at her for more than a moment. It always seemed to surprise him a bit when she caught his eye, and he would pause for a moment and look back at her. She liked him for it.

His face had taken some getting used to. She was a mannerly girl. She'd been taught not to stare at such people, and she tried not to. The scars on the right side of his face were devastating, and she wondered if they still hurt him. He surely hadn't been born like that. No, she'd seen burns like that before on one of the scullery maids after she'd been scalded, but hers had smoothed out and gone pale, ghosts across her skin. His were vivid and knotted.

He was obviously conscious of them. When the queen spoke to him, he turned the unscarred side of his face to her. He kept, or tried to keep, his long hair brushed over that part of his head, though it was made difficult by the fact that much of his scalp had burned as well, leaving his hair patchy on that side. Still, he made an effort to minimize their appearance, though whether it was for his sake or others' she couldn't tell. Probably some combination of both.

She didn't think he wasn't as fearsome as the other girls said. He had a reputation for rudeness, but she hadn't ever heard him speak. She wondered if the stories of his brawling through the Flea Bottom alehouses were true. In a way, she hoped they were. He had to have something more interesting about him than standing and watching babies play all day.

It was the unscarred side of his face that she found more interesting. It was almost handsome. His wavy hair was a middling brown and hung to his shoulders. He wore a scruffy beard, which suited his long face. The nose was crooked, by far the best evidence that tales of alehouse brawls were true, and his eyes were deep-seated and dark. Watchful. Oddly expressive.

Even from across the room, Lenna could tell when he was annoyed or bored or amused. His whole face softened when he looked down at the children, sometimes helping Joffrey pick up a mess or even lifting Myrcella out of her cradle and carrying her braced one-handed along his forearm to the queen. It was comical to see her, tiny thing that she was, engulfed more less in just one of his tremendous hands. It was impressive to see such an enormous man move with such gentleness, like he was afraid if he breathed too hard he might hurt the little one.

They were both watching Joff that morning when the little prince began to wind himself up into a tantrum. She'd seen it happen plenty of times with her nieces. First, the lower lip would jut out, then the whole face would crumple. Before a count of ten, there would be screaming, hot tears, and the pounding of little fists and flailing of little legs. Lenna didn't think she could bear to hear him squalling over a knocked-down tower again.

Before she knew what she was doing, she'd crossed the room. It felt like all eyes were on her, and she cheeks heated. When she glanced at the Hound the expression in his eyes was goading, his lone eyebrow twitching up in a dare. She'd come this far, so without further hesitation Lenna sank to her knees next to the little prince on the carpet.

"It's alright, my prince, we can fix it." She began picking up the blocks, gathering them together into a pile of bright colors.

The child didn't move to help her, instead looking at her with an imperiousness beyond his years. If she didn't think it would ruin her chance she might have laughed at him.

"Who are you?" His golden face as scrunched up again, but this time in confusion.

"I'm Lenna, my prince. Do you mind if I help you?"

"Don't need help," he whined. "I'm a prince."

"Of course you don't _need_ help."

He looked at her, then at the pile of blocks scattered on the floor.

"Alright," he said softly.

He plopped down on the carpet next to her and started trying to build them up again. She glanced up at Clegane, unsurprised to find him looking back at her. The expression had changed from challenge to amusement. She let herself smile faintly back at him before turning back to the little boy. No matter what he did as soon as the blocks were stacked three or four high they would topple right back over again. Lenna quickly identified the problem.

"My prince? Can I make a suggestion?"

The little prince looked at her shrewdly. "Alright."

"I always heard that Brandon the Builder would only start construction on level ground. And, forgive me, my prince, but this carpet isn't even. What if we moved our materials to the edge and built on the stone floor? It might make it easier."

Joffrey looked down at his feet, shifting his weight from side to side, his little toes sinking into the thick pile. He glanced at the stone and then back at Lenna.

"Let's try."

Lenna smiled at him, helping him push the blocks over so they were closer to the floor. She laid a few herself, but before long the little lady was busy back at work. She periodically gave him words of encouragement, oohing and ahhing over how tall it was getting.

Eventually the lad ran out of blocks, looking around himself in astonishment.

"Where'd they go?"

"You used them all, my prince. Look how tall it is!"

"I need more blocks."

"How do you like the sound of Joffrey the Builder? That could be your name one day."

"When I am king, I'll have all the blocks in the world."

He turned and looked back at his creation, delight chasing away the precocious haughtiness he often showed.

"Lenna," he said, his voice sweet. "Who is Brandon the Builder?"

"He built the Wall, your grace, and Winterfell in the North."

"Is it a big wall?"

"The biggest, my prince. Hundreds of feet high, made of ice. To keep the Wildlings and the White Walkers out of our lands."

"Will it be mine?"

"One day, your grace."

"I would like to see it."

It was then that Lenna noticed how intently Cersei was watching this exchange with her little son. She hadn't risen from her chair, hadn't moved to stop Lenna. Her expression was a curious mixture of annoyance and pleasure.

"Perhaps, Lady Helenna, you have a picture of the Wall to show the prince."

Lenna looked down at her hands. "I don't, your grace. I did at home, in a book about the Night's Watch, but I didn't bring it with me."

"But you are fond of books, are you not? You brought one for my Joffrey."

"It was the only one I brought, your grace."

Cersei's eyes narrowed slightly.

"Hound," she said, her eyes not straying from Lenna.

"Your grace." It was the first time she'd heard him speak. His voice was low and rasping, like a whetstone across steel.

"Your replacements have arrived. Would you show Lady Helenna where the library is?"

"Of course, your grace."

Lenna looked to the queen and back at Clegane. He had taken a step away from the wall.

"Joffrey would like to see the Wall. Do try and find a picture for him somewhere."

"Now, your grace?"

"Of course."

Lenna rose as gracefully as she could from the floor. Her right leg was asleep. She looked to Clegane and he nodded almost imperceptibly for her to walk ahead of him. Turning to the queen she curtseyed low and walked toward the door.

Once outside with the doors closed again behind them she stopped. He stood looking back at her impassively.

"I don't know where to go."

"This way," he rumbled, turning right and walking down the covered walkway. She had to speed up her gait to keep up with him. Despite being tall herself, her legs weren't nearly long enough to keep up with him without the extra effort. He seemed to note that she was nearly running, her breath coming hard, and he slowed down his steps and shortened his stride.

A few turns later, he came to a stop before an enormous pair of scarlet doors.

"This is the library."

"How is it organized?" She pulled open one of the doors and stepped in. It was a huge room, many times larger than her father's library in the New Castle. The ceiling was so high she could barely make out the beams, the walls covered in hundreds of thousands of spines. There were at least three levels that she could see, rickety wooden ladders tilted against the stacks here and there, not to mention the innumerable rows of bookcases on the ground level.

"Fucked if I know."

She had almost forgotten he was there or that she had asked a question. She felt like she was going to weep with joy looking at all of those books. The curse briefly shocked her, and she turned sharply to look at him.

"Sorry." He pressed his lips together in apology. She quirked the corner of her mouth back at him. Perhaps his reputation was deserved. That didn't bother her a bit. It was the first sincere word she'd heard in weeks.

"I have my work cut out for me, it seems," she said, looking back at the books.

"I'd find it fast, if I were you. Don't keep her waiting."

"Thank you, Clegane. Don't stay on my account. I know you're off duty. I think I can make my own way back."

"My lady," he replied, nodding. He left as quickly as if pursued by wolves. She wondered why he was so eager to flee.

She didn't think about it for long, though. She was too absorbed in her task. It took an hour, combing through the stacks, but she figured out the rough organization. Histories and tales were all grouped together, there was a section each for philosophy, economics, and the sciences. There were a great many books on the noble houses, and there were areas related to each of the Kingdoms. It was in the section on the North that she found a copy of the very book she'd had at home about the Night's Watch, though the illustration of the wall in this one was far grander. Much more suited to a prince than the pen-and-ink one she remembered in her father's collection. This one was rendered in vivid blues with generous swaths of lead-white which made her feel like an icy blast of Northern wind emanated from the pages themselves.

She turned reluctantly away, knowing Clegane was right. It wouldn't do to keep the prince waiting. She paused at the door, though, the book pressed against her chest, and looked back at the great cavern of the library.

 _Books are better than most people, after all._


	4. Chapter 4

Sandor II

Weeks passed, and then a month, then two. The queen said nothing about sending him after her new lady, and he rather hoped she'd forgotten. He'd taken to watching her while he was on duty, careful that she wouldn't detect him doing so. It gave him pleasure to watch her reactions from across the room. It was obvious that she hated every second she had to spend in the solar. She did well keeping her face blank, but he was learning the lexicon of her expressions, and it made him want to know what she was thinking when she cocked her head this way or pursed her lips, ever so slightly, that way.

Of course, she'd flouted the unspoken rules of the solar within a week or two. He'd been entertained the morning she'd walked purposefully across the room and plopped down next to the little prince at his feet. From the look on her face, she was surprised she'd done it as well. Once she had, though, she had won Joffrey to her, doting on him. Clegane didn't think the boy needed more spoiling, but she talked to him directly, like they were equals. She would sit on the floor with him, much to the distress of the other women. While many at court cooed and fawned over the prince, none of them treated him like a little boy. But she played with him, everything from blocks to games. She didn't just let him win, either.

When he lost, which he frequently did, he would pout and she would put the toys away and bring out the book. Before long he would sidle up beside her to see the pictures, his anger forgotten. Since that day he'd been sent to show her the library it seemed like she brought a new book with her each time she came to wait on the queen. Joffrey would get excited to see her when she came in with the others in the morning, looking to see what she had brought him. Often times he would have to wait, but he made his displeasure known to his mother, who watched his interactions with her young attendant with a mixture of enjoyment and jealousy.

Clegane was surprised that Cersei permitted it, but she encouraged the young lady to play with the prince. There were mornings when she suggested Lady Helenna should not feel obligated to sew if she would prefer to read to him. The girl would smile, as brightly as she could, and Joff would run to her, often climbing into her lap like a much younger child. She would open whatever book she'd brought and read quietly into his ear, her hair falling about them like a curtain, their fingers tracing the words together. She often made him try the words himself, and soon enough he was reading to her instead of the other way round, a pleased, proud smile on her lips as she listened to him lisp his way through story after story.

Clegane only wished she would bring something other than fucking fairy stories. Knights and ladies and dragons and bollocks. Filling the little prince's head with ideas of honor and chivalry and sacred duties. He'd curl his lip without meaning to, and she caught him several times. She never said a word to him, but a blush would spread across that white skin. He'd humph and look away. He wasn't quiet in his disdain for knights. He'd never taken vows. He didn't believe in them, and thought most of those that swore them did a better job breaking them than they did living by them. Especially his brother.

That was probably why he hated the stories most. They made him think of Gregor, and he hated thinking about Gregor.

Cersei seemed to soften toward the girl. She started greeting her first, which did the girl no favors with the other attendants. Truth be told, the others already despised her, just as he feared they would. After her rather irregular introduction to the court they had clearly marked her as beneath them. "It doesn't matter how rich her father is," he'd heard them whisper, "she's not like us." As a result, he noticed that she kept to herself unless she was talking to the little prince or the queen. No one else would speak to her. She was an avid listener, as he learned by watching her himself, noting the subtle signs of amusement or boredom. And often anger.

Because Cersei seemed to have relented in her attitude toward the girl, it came as a surprise when nearly three months after her arrival the queen bid him to follow her.

He'd spent that morning watching her with the prince and princess. She smiled and answered Joff's questions, volunteered to walk and bounce little Myrcella while she cried. Something was always wistful about her, even when she was smiling at the children, the corners of her eyes crinkling but their brightness just a little dimmed. Cersei had dismissed her at the usual time, and the girl had left after assuring the little prince that she would return the next morning.

His replacements arrived just as the girl was leaving, and Cersei had waved him over.

"I want to know where goes and who she talks to," she'd said lowly. He'd nodded but made no reply, walking quickly to catch up with her.

He gave her a head start of fifty paces, just far enough away that she wouldn't hear him, that he'd be able to duck out of her sight if she happened to turn, but close enough that he wouldn't lose her.

It was like she was a different girl entirely once she walked out of sight of the doors. Her head was bent, eyes on her hands, her shoulders slightly slumped. It was the first time he hadn't seen her rigid-backed since her first introduction to the queen. She'd stood terrified at the door for a long moment, but she'd quickly recovered herself. This girl wasn't terrified, but she looked weary even from afar. She was fast, walking with purpose toward her as-of-yet unknown destination, and he nearly lost her in the winding halls of the Keep. He was surprised when he realized where she was going, trekking fast through the Keep toward the Sept, ducking through a side door.

He went in silently through the back, keeping himself to shadow and alcoves. He watched as she knelt before each statue in turn, lighting two tapers at the foot of each. She took her time, and he thought she made a lovely picture with her dark hair and pale skin in the candlelight. Her silk gown was made in the King's Landing style, but it was a muted green, unlike the bright colors the women wore in the capital, and she had not adopted any of the court hairstyles. Instead, it still flowed down her back, rolled back from her face in two waves that met in the back and fell to her waist.

He felt uncomfortable watching and listening to her pray. He hoped she would go somewhere else after this. Cersei frowned on piety, and he didn't want to lie outright. He would by omission, but she had to give him something else to report. Maybe it was because she smiled at him, or maybe it was because when no one else was looking she looked so heartsick, but he wanted to protect this girl. He didn't know why, but he didn't want to help the queen hurt her, if that was the aim. It seemed to him that she had been brought to the capital to settle some odd personal grievance, and despite her bright smiles and laughter with the prince it was clear to him that she was miserable. From what the queen and her father had discussed, it seemed the only reason she had been called was to irk Wyman Manderly. He was powerful and rich, sure, and known to be somewhat hot-headed, but Clegane was not aware of any particular reason why the Lord of White Harbor would be at odds with the Lord of Casterly Rock. He was sure, though, that the girl was being used to some end or other.

He was startled when she started singing. He must have stopped paying attention, wrapped up in trying to figure out why the girl meant anything to the Lannisters at all. She had moved on from the Maid and was now kneeling and singing a hymn to the Mother. It was a high, sweet sound that he desperately wanted to hate. He didn't hate it, quite the opposite. Thought fled, but this time his focus was concentrated solely on her, admiring the sound of her voice along with her pale face, her brows like raven feathers, her mouth pink and plump as rosehips.

 _You're not supposed to pant after her from the shadows, dog_.

He attempted to divert his thoughts. It wouldn't do to go muddy-headed into battle, and that's what he felt like he was waging with himself now. He turned his thoughts away from his growing admiration and back to simple observation: she looked tired, darker patches under her eyes, her shoulders sagging, her voice faltering here or there. He wasn't sure, but she might be crying.

With that awareness, guilt rolled over him like a tide.

He was relieved when she was finished and left the Sept, slipping out as quietly as she had entered. He headed out the back and waited to see her pass him up the passageway. Again, she was fast, moving quickly with her head bowed and he had to be careful to keep her in view.

The next set of doors shouldn't have surprised him. With a glance in both directions, checking for guards or anyone else that might see her, she eased open the iron-bound entrance to the library and slipped inside.

There was no way she'd not know he was there if he went in, so he stayed in the courtyard. He had to wait a long time. He started to get annoyed, he was supposed to be off duty, and right when he was about to give up and leave she slipped out again, this time hastening back to the queen's solar to prepare for the evening meal. As she walked she looked down at her hands, licking her left thumb with a little pink tongue and rubbing at her right thumb and forefinger where a dark smudge bloomed. Ink.

He returned to the library when he was sure she was back with the queen, prowling through the stacks until he found what he was looking for. Tucked into a back corner beneath one of the high windows she had collected a pile of books, rolls of parchment, and pots of ink on a dusty table. It was less organized than he expected, every inch of surface covered by some fragment or other.

He picked up the books, slightly put off when he realized they weren't in the common tongue. He'd been taught to read, to do sums, but he hadn't had a predilection for learning. Cleganes were soldiers, not scholars. It had been enough of a fight for the mealy-mouthed Maester in their Keep to hammer letters and numbers into his thick head. He didn't see the point of spending time looking at the skins of dead animals. He'd rather be killing them. There was nothing he couldn't say well enough with a sword. At least, that's what he'd always been told. But here lay books in far-off tongues of Meereenese, Braavosi, Myrish, and reams of paper covered with fluid scrawlings. Translations. Notes. Questions.

His mouth quirked up. Here the queen was worried her little captive might be some Northern schemer, but she'd gotten a fucking scholar instead. It made him feel lighter to know that the girl wasn't up to anything interesting. If this is where she went everyday, the queen couldn't have gotten a more boring ward. It surprised him, honestly. He'd not have thought her interested in such things with her penchant for fairy stories.

He followed again over the next few weeks, and no matter what day he went it was always the same: prayers and songs in the Sept, hours in the library, then back to her duties. Sometimes she took a turn in the gardens. She seemed to favor the ones that overlooked the sea, sitting on a bench or standing at the wall with the wind in that hair. He was starting to have more than a passing fascination with her hair, wondering what it would feel like against his his fingers. Truth be told, he was starting to have more than a passing fascination with _her_ , fueled on by her insistence on fucking smiling when she saw him. It didn't matter that he'd look away or glower back, without fail she would smile every time his eyes met hers. He'd started collecting them like a child might collect marbles, mulling them over in his head as he contrasted them with each other: this one impish, that one wan and sad, another pleased. All of them sincere, reaching all the way to her eyes.

The eyes, they had started to haunt him, too. He'd thought they were dark, like her hair, but she'd looked up at him once from the floor and he saw the play of green light in them. Not the beryl-green of Lannister eyes, but dark and mottled, swirled up with amber and brown and even gray. Sea eyes, not the blue sea of a song, but the true sea of storms and whitecaps and kelp. It had sent a little jolt of pleasure through him when he noticed their color, and they began to figure prominently in his nightly musings, thoughts he couldn't bat away no matter how hard he tried. He'd been attracted to maids before, but his imaginings had always been fairly rough in nature, along the lines of what he got up to at the bawdy houses. These thoughts were disconcertingly different. He lusted after her plenty, but it was softer, and instead of just her body, he thought about her smile, her blushes, her voice.

He hated himself for it.

Cersei dismissed her courtiers one morning before lunch, pretending to have correspondence to attend, keeping the little princes with her. As soon as the doors closed she had looked to Clegane. He'd been expecting an interrogation, preparing himself to answer her. He'd been dreading it, knowing that even though the girl was innocent Cersei had a way of twisting everything to make it ugly.

"And?"

"Little to report, your grace." _Not a lie_.

"Well, where does she go?"

"The library. Sometimes the gardens." _Not a lie._

"Where else?"

"That's it, your grace." It wasn't a falsehood, he told himself, just an omission. He wasn't about to tell the queen that the girl spent an hour in the Sept every morning. The queen didn't like piety, and it was clear the girl found comfort at the feet of those statues. He didn't put stock in the gods either, but he wasn't about to risk her losing anything that seemed to give her comfort.

"You can't mean she does that every day."

"Every time I've followed, your grace. Same schedule."

"What does she do in the library?"

"Reads. Takes notes. Seems to speak a lot of languages."

"Which ones?"

"Myrish, Braavosi, Meereenese. Others." He paused, looking away self-consciously. "I'm not a learned man, your grace."

"No," she agreed offhandedly, rising and walking to the princess's crib. Her eyes had narrowed and she gathered the little princess in her arms. "Who does she talk to?"

"No one, your grace." _Not a lie_.

"She's made no friends, no acquaintances she walks with?" Cersei sounded surprised, and Clegane faintly wondered why. She didn't look like the other ladies, she didn't talk like them. She was younger than most of the ladies-in-waiting and older than the wards. Nothing about her fit. It was clear even to him that she had been refused entry into the social circles of Cersei's court. He wondered that she would have missed it.

"None that I have seen."

This seemed to please the queen. It made his blood boil. With a flick of her wrist he was dismissed.

"Thank you, Clegane. You're relieved. Send in your replacements."

He nodded, the closest he got to a bow and left, the two guards waiting to relieve him stepping in to take his place.

Without thinking, he followed his feet. He walked down into Flea Bottom to an alehouse he knew and ordered a flagon of Dornish sour. The barkeep looked at him oddly. It was just midday. He didn't usually come until the evening, and he often went with a few of the other guards, not alone as he was today. He wasn't exactly popular, he had a foul mouth and fouler temper, but he didn't like to drink alone. The others were far too scared of him not to include him in their revelry though he couldn't say he counted any of them as friends.

 _We're alike that way_ , he mused, his thoughts turning once more to the girl.

Today he had an excuse, or at least a desire, to be alone. The barmaid brought the wine, but left him when she noticed the scowl on his face. He'd had her once or twice in the alley out back. She wasn't bad for the money, but he wasn't up for it today. Instead he looked at his cup, laying his hands flat on either side of it and wondering why he felt like he'd done something indecent. He wondered what she would do or say if she knew he'd been sent to spy on her. Would she care? Would she be angry? Or would those dappled eyes narrow with hurt? He didn't want to know, not truly.

He took a deep swig of the wine, enjoying the burn of it, drinking it like water. He wiped a hand across his mouth and scowled. _Damn her_. He shouldn't even be giving her a second thought, and here he was drinking of an afternoon because he felt guilty for watching her without her knowledge. Anyone else and he'd have done it without a second thought.

 _What is she to me? Just another highborn wench_.

There was a dark knot of foreboding in his gut that warned him not the believe that lie, and it angered him.


	5. Chapter 5

292 AC

Lenna III

Princess Myrcella enthusiastically picked up the brightly colored blocks and flung them back down again in abandon, chortling in delight. She was sitting on the floor of her mother's solar with Lenna at her side. They had been sorting them rather successfully for a time, but the little girl's interest was beginning to wane. She'd grown into a robust two-year-old, crowned with downy golden curls and sporting the Lannister beryl-green eyes. Nothing about her said Baratheon, she looked to grow into a miniature version of her mother, albeit with a sweeter temperament.

Lenna enjoyed playing with the busy little girl, especially since Joffrey had become so much more changeable. The prince was sitting on his own playing with two toy soldiers. Sometime in the past year he had stopped climbing into Lenna's lap, though he would still often sit close when she read aloud. At first Lenna had attributed his growing petulance to the birth of his baby brother, Tommen. She'd observed the same thing when Wylla had been born, Wynna no longer the sole focus of the family's attention. Wynna had gradually warmed to her sister as she grew older and the two became inseparable, but Joffrey showed no signs of accepting his brother despite the little lad being almost a year old. Instead, the Crown Prince had become more and more withdrawn, scorning his little sister as well. Sweet child that she was, Myrcella only wanted to play with him and love him. She was openly affectionate to everyone, but Joffrey often grew angry with her. There had been many occasions when Lenna had to physically separate them, whisking Myrcella up in her arms and out of the boy's reach when he'd became enraged if she touched one of his things or tried to kiss him when he was in a mood. It broke her heart for both of them. Myrcella's tears dried quickly, but she grieved that Joffrey would turn away his sister's companionship. He'd always struck her as a lonely little boy, and now she couldn't even trust him to play with the princess without constant supervision.

She wasn't the only one watching. Clegane clearly had a soft spot for the children. Myrcella openly adored him, and when she would toddle to him and grasp his finger a softness would overtake his rough features that made Lenna smile. He clearly took his duty seriously and was fiercely protective of the little girl, especially when she was caught in her brother's anger. His gaze would harden and his jaw clench, though there was little he could do except distract the prince until he forgot about tormenting his sister. Lenna felt caught in these situations as well, wary of the queen's wrath and furious that he should be allowed to get away bedeviling his sister. Unfortunately, Joffrey had long ago learned that Lenna had no power and that he could ignore her without consequence. He'd even struck Lenna a few times in his fits. It was shocking how strong the little boy was, and more than once Clegane had stepped in to sidetrack him. Neither of them had ever uttered so much as a rebuke, and Lenna was keenly aware of Cersei's scrutiny.

Joffrey was currently playing with his toy soldiers, having already gotten over an earlier fit in which he'd slapped his sister and yanked Lenna's braid. Her scalp still stung, and she was stewing over the queen's lack of action. Such poor behavior might be expected of a child of three or four, but not a lad of eight. Joffrey should know better, and she suspected that he did but simply didn't care. His willfulness was praised by his mother as spirit, but Lenna felt sure it would take a darker turn if something wasn't done. However, it wasn't her place to correct a prince, and her powerlessness angered her to no end.

Clegane was keeping on eye on him while he played, his dark eyes hooded with annoyance. She'd been grateful to him when he'd quickly gotten the boy's attention with a bawdy joke. It wasn't the most appropriate thing for a child to hear, but it was better than having her hair ripped out by the roots. She'd moved as far from Joffrey as she could, and from her position she now had a good command of the room, keeping one eye on the princess as she played and the other on the idle busyness of another day at court.

The average day in the queen's presence felt both bustling and idle. There was a hum of chatter from the moment the doors opened in the morning until she was dismissed. Sometimes she could still hear it even as she worked over her books and parchments in the library. It was mellow and almost comforting, occasionally broken by a peal of laughter. The courtiers that flocked to the queen were a motley assortment of second sons and daughters of great houses and social climbers with barely a name to recommend them. Many of them were exceedingly dull in Lenna's opinions, but they were beautiful to watch. Every movement was affected, every gown and jerkin carefully chosen. Lenna often felt like she had her on private theater, and she took great delight in following the various, sometimes scandalous, dramas that were the lives of her fellow courtiers.

She was listening intently to a young nobleman's outrageous account of a night in Lord Baelish's brother when the doors to the solar opened and in bustled Grand Maester Pycelle. She'd encountered him in the library many times, and the old man had been indulgent if a little condescending as he helped her locate a volume or two. He'd even tried to make recommendations, though considering he had suggested only romances she guessed he didn't think she really could read that Old Valyrian poetry she'd asked for. Despite his patronizing manner, Lenna detected a bit of kindness in the old man and wasn't ungrateful to him. The romances had indeed been entertaining even if they were a bit overwrought.

He usually arrived later in the morning to deliver the queen's mail. Letters to the courtiers were typically delivered by a runner or simply slid under their doors. Lenna always counted it a good day to find a letter, usually carried by one of her father's ships, under her door. The queen's mail, on the other hand, was delivered by the Grand Maester himself. The queen usually received a mixture of both couriered letters and ravens, neatly arranged and brought to her on a tray with a special stand fitted with slots for the scrolls.

Pycelle did not carry the tray today. In his hand he held a single roll of parchment bound with a black ribbon. Raven sent, judging by its size, and Lenna knew well what the black band meant. _Dark wings, dark words._ She felt for whoever was to receive it, offering a quick prayer to the Mother to comfort them at such ill tidings.

Pycelle slid his eyes to her where she sat on the floor, but quickly averted them as he hurried toward the queen like he hadn't wanted to see her. It was odd. He usually nodded and bestowed a decrepit smile when he saw her. It had grown almost as customary as smiling at the Hound. Pycelle's refusal to meet her eye was followed by the foreboding stir of dread in her gut.

He bowed lowly and approached Cersei, handing her the scroll and leaning to whisper in her ear. Cersei's eyes immediately found Lenna's, a grave expression overtaking her fair face. She glanced back at Pycelle and thanked him, speaking so low Lenna couldn't hear her.

Lenna didn't need to hear or see anything else, and it was if her limbs turned to stone.

"I would speak to Lady Helenna." Cersei's voice was soft, lacking the hard edge it often had. All eyes in the room flicked from the queen to Lenna, and the familiar drone of the chamber died to silence. Without a sound, the gathered courtiers exited in a single breathing mass, leaving Lenna alone with the queen, the children, and Clegane.

She'd heard Clegane shift behind her as soon as Cersei had dismissed her court. He usually stood with one foot propped against the wall, his arms across his chest. Now he had moved to distribute his massive weight, hands falling by his sides as he looked down at her. She could feel his gaze though she could not bring herself to look up at him. She instead sat transfixed as the queen regarded her steadily, her usually cool eyes awash with pity.

"Come here, my dove, and sit with me." The queen held out a hand, her golden brows knitted together ruefully.

Lenna didn't know how she made her way across the room. It seemed that one moment she was on the carpet and the next she had sunk down on the cushion at Cersei's feet. She had no recollection of rising or walking.

Cersei proffered the scroll with one graceful hand. Lenna stared at it, as if doing so would make it disappear.

"Do you wish to open it, or shall I?" The queen's voice was gentle, the kindest Lenna had ever heard it. She lifted her eyes to Cersei's face and took no comfort from what she saw written there. There was not use pretending they didn't know what that scroll contained.

"I will do it, your grace," she whispered, thinking of her father's brusque attention to unpleasant business and her mother's dignified acceptance of duty. She sat a little straighter as she reached out, taking the paper from Cersei's grasp.

She broke the seal with trembling and opened it, needing only to read it once. She felt icy cold and shaky, and she handed it back to the queen, glad that she was no longer holding it.

Once, when she was very little, she'd been paddling on the shore and the waves had picked her up, slamming her against the bottom again and again until she no longer knew where the surface was. Her lungs had burned, her mouth had filled with seawater as she flailed, heart pounding as she desperately fought against the tide. Her father had plucked her out of the surf, squalling and gasping for air, her whole body raw from repeatedly scraping against the sand, the roaring of the waves still in her ears. It was that same roaring that now filled her head with each wallop of her heart against her ribcage.

"Your grace, may I be excused?"

"Little dove, is there someone I should send to stay with you? I do not think you should be alone." The queen had reached out and taken Lenna's hand. Lenna looked at it as it lay in her grasp like a pale, dead bird. It didn't feel like it belonged to her.

"No, your grace."

 _I want to go home._ If she'd been able to speak she would have wailed. She would have screamed and flailed, but all she had was silence. Silence, and the thought of her lovely mother laid out in the Sept at home with the funerary stones on her eyes. She wondered if she was there now, her hands quietly folded over her stomach, dressed in her best gown with her hair coiled around her head. She wondered if her father and brothers were there with her, or if she were alone with the silent sisters in their eerie robes, only their eyes left visible.

"Of course, child. If that's what you wish. Let Clegane escort you back to your rooms."

Lenna was pulled out of her ghastly reverie and nodded, allowing Cersei to draw her to her feet. The queen put her hands on Lenna's shoulders and turned her so they were face to face, nearly the same height. The queen peered into Lenna's face, and for the first time she saw compassion there. Cersei's jaw was tight and her eyes shimmered with tears.

"Lady Helenna, I cannot share what you are feeling now, but know that you have my most sincere condolences. I never met your mother, but my father has spoken of what a fine lady she was. I, too, have lost a mother, but at a young enough age that time has lessened the loss. I will pray to the Mother to comfort you."

She enfolded the young woman in her arms, running a hand over her hair like she sometimes did to Myrcella when she was fussy. Lenna knew she meant it to console her, but she only wished to be free of it. After all, if Cersei hadn't made her come to King's Landing, she would have been there with her mother. If she'd been allowed to stay home, perhaps she wouldn't have fallen ill. Any sympathy from the queen felt hollow. Instead of yielding, Lenna kept her back stiff and arms at her sides, willing the embrace to end so she could attend to her pain in privacy.

Every last sinew wanted to escape at a full run, but she kept her steps measured and slow, reminding herself to breathe. She felt like she was going to vomit, like every part of her wanted to empty itself so there would be nothing left to bear the pain.

She barely notived his footsteps behind her, walking blindly through the corridors with her enormous shadow in her wake. When she reached her own chamber she was surprised so see his hand reach toward her doorknob, then falter.

"My lady." His voice was rough and low, the syllables full of agitation.

She forced herself to turn and look up at him. He was standing closer to her than she could ever remember and she was faintly conscious of how massive he was. He was looking down on her with doleful eyes, his good brow furrowed with surprising concern.

 _His eyes are grey_. Why she would notice such a thing at a time like this she didn't know.

"Who?" Harsh as stone on metal.

"My mother." Her voice cracked on the second word. He closed his eyes, clenching them briefly shut as if in pain or prayer.

"I'm sorry." His demeanor was painfully awkward, as if he had never offered condolences in his life. It occurred to her that perhaps he hadn't. She didn't doubt his sincerity. The grooves that framed his mouth had deepened gravely, and his shoulders had stooped so he could bend closer. His throat worked wordlessly, like he was trying to think of something else to say. Her heart, which had felt like a chunk of ice, cracked painfully with the warmth she suddenly felt for him for trying so hard. His scant words meant more to her than Cersei's pretty speech, though she was sure the queen had been in earnest for once. But the Hound had no obligation to console her, and he was clearly made uncomfortable by it. It was an unexpected kindness from what shouldn't, she thought, have been an unexpected source.

"Thank you," she replied faintly, trying to summon a smile but failing, her lip trembling instead. He nodded, then reached beyond her to open the latch to her door.

She felt like a ghost as she passed him and closed the door behind her, gray and transparent. She knew he was still standing there as she sank to the floor, her back pressed against the door, but she could no longer hold back her grief. It bubbled up so violently from her gut it frightened her, coursing savagely through her core, cold and hot and unbearable. She knew she was sobbing, keening, and threw her arm across her mouth, biting into her own flesh to muffle the sounds she barely recognized as emanating from her own throat. She fought to control her breathing, unable to slow the rapid working of her lungs, becoming lightheaded. Frustrated and helpless, she struck at the door with her fists, using the pain as a focus in the midst of the anguish. Her knuckles quickly grew bruised and raw, but her breathing regained a hitching, regular rhythm. She cried until she was utterly spent, nearly falling asleep sitting there on the floor. She had no idea how long it was, but it felt like hours.

She dragged herself up off the ground and managed to strip off her clothes and stays. She crawled dazed into her bed. She was almost asleep when she heard the scrape of a boot on the floor outside her room. Heavy footsteps retreated from her door as she huddled into a little ball, her legs drawn to her chest, vaguely comforted that she hadn't been alone.

Sandor III

Joffrey acted like a little cunt all morning. If he'd been able to do so without losing his hand or his head, he would have backhanded the little prince across the room. Joffrey was becoming exactly the kind of boy he had hated during his own childhood, always choosing violence and cruelty. He could have ignored his sister, he could have moved away, but instead he'd struck her, making her sob not just because of the raw red mark on her chubby cheek, but because it was her beloved brother who had done it.

Sandor Clegane wasn't a kind man. He wasn't a gentle man. He had a savage and well-deserved reputation for using his sword, his firsts, and his foul tongue when he was displeased. Despite his own penchant for violence, Clegane did not go after those weaker than himself. Smaller, yes, but not weaker. Call it a warped sense of justice, but his own experience had been too traumatic for him to ever justify preying on weaker creatures by choice. Every time he saw his own face, rare as that was these days, he was reminded of the difference between cruelty and justice. He'd wrought havoc on other men, taken their lives or left them mangled, but he'd given every last one of them the chance to defend themselves first.

Joffrey was not going to grow up to be a just king, and it made Clegane's blood roil. That so many men had fought and bled and died for a little cunt to ascend after his father was unspeakable. He blamed the queen, and the king, too, for that matter. No one ever checked the boy. He was far beyond spoiled and quickly becoming a monster. It was a test each and every day not to seize the boy the arm and dash his head against the wall when he struck the little princess. It would spare them all if he did. His vision had actually flashed red when the maid from Manderly had gathered him up in her arms to move him away from little Myrcella that morning and he'd wildly yanked her hair. The girl's eyes had welled with tears, and Clegane had nearly seized the boy by the throat, but he'd managed to grab the boys attention by other means.

He'd been glaring down at the brat when the old Maester came it. He didn't leer over at Helenna Manderly like he usually did when he delivered the queen's mail, in fact, he wasn't bringing the mail as he usually did at all. Clegane saw the roll of parchment with its black band immediately. Someone was getting bad news. He watched as the old man darted his eyes towards their corner, resting briefly on Helenna Manderly before slithering closer to the queen. He glanced down at the girl and saw that she had stiffened, one of the princess' blocks dangling from her hand, forgotten.

It was fascinating to see the color drain from her face. She went completely white, whiter than he thought possible. Even her lips lost their color, like she'd wasted away into a ghost before his eyes.

 _Gods, no_ , he thought, _not for her._

Cersei dismissed everyone from the room, but he remained. The children still played at his feet, completely oblivious to the dread that had settled in the room like smoke. He watched the girl rise to the queen's bidding and slowly cross the room, like she was under some terrible spell. Her movements didn't look natural, stilted and deliberate as she opened the parchment without any visible reaction. He expected her to cry, to collapse, anything except remain silent and composed as she sat with that parchment unrolled and limp in her hand.

Even the queen was moved. He had seldom seen her show anything but bored disdain except for own children, but he'd be damned if she wasn't actually upset for the girl. She tried to get her to talk, but the girl refused.

"Let Clegane escort you back to your rooms." He had missed the rest of what Cersei had said, distracted by how surprising troubled he felt, but he came back to himself at the sound of his name. Dismay settled across his shoulders.

He was disquieted at the thought of bearing her back to her rooms, just the two of them. He didn't know what to do for a girl who had just lost someone dear to her. He was so caught up in his own thoughts that he missed Cersei moving towards the girl until he looked up to see her embrace the unresponsive girl. The young lady's face was completely blank, her arms hanging limply by her sides. Few things disturbed him, but seeing her usually vibrant face transformed into a blank mask made him feel sick in the pit of his stomach.

He followed her when she went to the door. She walked ahead of him floating like a spirit, her steps unearthly even and slow. Her face remained fixed, not so much as a flicker of feeling when it was usually so agile and expressive. She had folded her hands primly in front of stomach, and her chin was level. Her eyes were mysteriously dry. She was unbowed.

He followed her hesitantly to her rooms, reaching for her doorknob but feeling that he had to say _something_ in light of the circumstances.

"My lady." It was pulled from him against his will. He had no idea what to say to her, what could possibly comfort her. If only he could repair the emptiness and the hurt her saw in her eyes when she turned them to him at last.

"Who?" he asked dumbly, cursing himself for his clumsiness.

"My mother." Her voice sounded far off, lost, and it cracked sharply on the last syllable. Pain cut through him. He'd lost his own mother as a lad, and he had loved her. She'd died of the same illness that had taken his sister, and he remembered it with a child's misery. He couldn't imagine going through it again, especially not as this girl was, a thousand miles away from any who cared for her, who could comfort her. _She should be with her family, and here she is far off and alone. All wrong._

"I'm sorry." It was all he could think of to say, and it was true. He felt it like a boulder was sitting on his sternum.

She lifted her eyes to him again and he thought he saw a glimmer in them. "Thank you."

Her lips trembled and he realized she was trying to fucking smile for him. He didn't think he could stand another second under her scrutiny, it was too painful. _She deserves better than this._ He reached out and unlatched the door. Without another word, she passed by him and shut it behind her.

He had planned to walk away until he heard the dragging scrape of her as she sank to the floor, sliding down the other side of the door. A sharp report of hiccuping sobs followed, gradually growing in volume and frequency, and he could no longer move his feet. He couldn't just walk away, not knowing she was alone on the other side, crying as her heart shattered. If she wasn't among those who cared for her, the least he could do was stand guard outside her door until her grief was spent.

So he stood there, each sob and wail like the strike of a whip. He might have flinched if he'd been made of weaker mettle. He stood as if on duty, his back to the door, his head resting against the wood so when she started to hit it he could feel it reverberate through his bones. He wagered her knuckles were well bloody. She was stronger than she looked. _Much stronger than I gave her credit for._

He didn't know how long it went on for, probably an hour or two, well past the time he was released from duty. He didn't care, not today. He didn't care if Cersei was angry he hadn't returned. If she said anything, which he had no doubt she would, he'd tell her the truth, that he'd kept a guard outside the girl's door so she could weep in peace. He suspected she would let that drop, given the circumstances. He waited until he heard the girl get up, her feet dragging across the floor as she went to her bed.

When the room beyond the door had finally fallen silent, he allowed himself to leave. He felt wearier than he had in years, like he'd often felt after battle during the wars. His shoulders were tight with the strain of listening to her, and he single-mindedly headed to the alehouses, hoping for enough beer to mute the sounds of despair that would not stop echoing through his brain.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Thank you to everyone who has left a comment! I really do appreciate the encouragement, especially as this last bit has been a doozy. The timeline is challenging, and I'm trying to take heart that it's just as convoluted in the books and series! I promise it will start picking up as we get closer to the action of the books, I just truly felt that these relationships were important to build from the ground up. I hope you enjoy!**

Lenna IV

294 AC

The capital's tendency to change from misty mornings to sweltering middays infuriated her. When she'd first arrived, it had felt like the air weighed more, dropping like stones into her lungs. The humidity made her feel like she was suffocating. At home in the North, she'd needed a stout woolen dress and a cloak for the evening chill even in summer, but they had long ago been banished to the bottom of her chest, unused and unnecessary. Only silk would do in King's Landing.

When she looked down, she could see that her burgundy court gown was streaked with dark perspiration stains. It had draped so elegantly when she dressed just a few hours before, but now it clung to her back and stomach. The fabric was limp and rumpled from sweat. All she had done was walk to and from the Sept at a leisurely pace.

With the dress was in such a state, she cringed to think about her hair. While she more or less looked the part of a capital lady-in-waiting, she continued to decline the handmaiden's efforts, wearing her hair as she always had in either a braid or loose down her back. The curls simply wouldn't comply with court standards, and she loved and envied them for it. She'd tried to bind them today, and she could already feel unruly tendrils plastered against her neck, itching like winter wool. Another reminder that despite her courtly manners, Lenna was not a capital woman.

Each day she rose and dressed in her pretty things, feeling like an impostor. It had been nearly four years since her arrival, and though she had adopted King's Landing dress and manners, she had steadfastly refused the bright colors and ridiculous hairstyles. She knew that no matter what she did, she would always been an outsider among the other ladies at court. She had come to prefer it that way.

She did her duty. That was her comfort. The beginning had been difficult, but the time since her mother's death two years before had been almost unbearable. It went far beyond homesickness and grief. Both could be overcome with occupation, but Lenna had none unless she counted her time with the royal children each day, or her hours in the library.

Lenna smiled despite herself. Myrcella had been her sweet self that morning. She'd almost mastered her colors and shapes, and Lenna was amazed at how much her vocabulary had expanded. She was precociously speaking in full sentences, and Lenna wished she had more time with her. Her mother seemed to barely acknowledge her, but Lenna was invested in the little girl, both in her happiness and her growing. She was at the age where she was full of questions, and Lenna was more than happy to answer them and the all the ones that followed in their wake. It did her mind and her heart good to talk to the little girl, to share with her what she could.

Of course, Joff had been himself as well. He needled his sister, who usually avoided him, and played roughly with little Tommen. The littlest prince wasn't even two yet he already grew fussy and hesitant around his big brother. Lenna and Clegane had exchanged looks all morning, but neither of them could do anything about it. Clegane had clenched his jaw, something she'd learned to read as his contained fury, and Lenna had felt her shoulders creep up around her ears until she could feel the headache rising from between her shoulder blades.

When Cersei had dismissed them for the morning to attend to her business, she had almost fled to the Sept. Not even her time before the Mother, that blessed quiet time, had eased the tension between her shoulders or smoothed her brow. It was one of those days where only the isolation of the library would give her the relief she craved.

She had even really thought about where she was going once the doors to the Sept closed behind her. She simply followed her feet. Her routine had been her saving grace after her mother died: mornings with the queen, a visit to the Sept, time in the library before dinner. Evenings were often a little more varied, but once everyone had retired, her feet would find their way back to the library doors, leading her back to her work and the solace of the silence.

As she looked at her rumpled gown again, She wondered why she even cared what she looked like. No one would see her, and even if they did they wouldn't attend to the state of her clothes. Very few people ever noticed Lenna Manderly at all. She walked as quickly as she could, her slippers barely making a sound against the paving stones. She paused before the set of large heavy doors as a trickle of sweat slithered down her spine. She walked into the cool darkness on the other side like wading into the chill of a lake.

As many times as she had cursed the heat of the capital, she had blessed this place for its quiet rows of musty books and dark, deep nooks. The Red Keep's library was always shrouded in shadow, even at midday in midsummer, the few shafts of sunlight falling like honey from the high windows, so thick with dust she felt she could reach out and wrap one around her hand like a skein of silk.

This library had been her refuge for the past few years. It was where she came when she could stand it no longer, both keenly aware that she wouldn't even be missed and glad for the respite. It wasn't a bad thing to be so neglected. She found all of the places to stay out of sight in the Keep, away from the gossip of the other ladies and the attention of the young knights who seemed to flock around the young ladies of the court like flies to sweets. While many maids may have wanted to stay close to the queen, to at least try and make connections, Lenna decided it was best to be left to her own devices. Instead of extra hours of embroidery some of the women returned for in the afternoon, she decided to take to the gardens by herself, spending hours there walking every day. Rather than listen to half-hearted minstrels, she hid in the dark depths of the Keep's massive library, a labyrinthine cavern of dust and wormy vellum. The queen never objected, and Lenna had long ago learned to ask for forgiveness instead of a blessing. If she was missed, she never knew it.

 _But this place_ , she thought, as she breathed in the musty comfort of the books, a smile curling across her face. This place was the closest thing she had to a home anymore, and when she breathed that dusty scent in deeply she was taken back to her father's study. In her memory, she could almost remember the salty tang of White Harbor, of her father's hair when she bent to kiss it while he sat at his great desk. She had passed her childhood in a miniature version of this temple to learning. Her father's study was a wide, bright room that overlooked the harbor, the cries of the gulls filtering through the windows with the cold sea-light. His collection of books was well known, and she had relished the stacks. None of them were off limits to her, his favored child. His only daughter. The smell of musty vellum and cracked leather must be universal as the atmosphere of the library in the Keep evoked her memories of White Harbor strongly each time she set foot within the doors. It was almost like walking through a portal back to the New Castle.

Four years since she had been home, four years since she had seen her father, as he steadfastly refused to come to the capital even to see his precious Lenna. He'd sent ravens faithfully at the beginning, but then her mother died and something...happened. Something _had to_ have happened. There was no other explanation for why the communications had dwindled down to nothing except a hasty note on her nameday, written in cold terms that destroyed her heart each and every year. Coin came, but beyond that, it was if she'd been entirely forgotten, cut off from them.

It had been in these stacks that she had mourned the news that her mother was dead. She hadn't seen her in two years, but her seventeen-year-old self had curled up in a ball like a child on the window ledge and keened for hours, day after day, the little roll of parchment clasped in her hand. She kept her face placid and her eyes dry in the queen's company, though Cersei tried to be gentle and considerate of her in the weeks that followed. It was only in the safety of the stacks that she allowed herself to properly grieve, to have any emotions at all. She would not allow herself to break in front of anyone.

This was only partially true. One other person had witnessed her devastation, the only other person who had acknowledged her loss at all: the Hound. An unlikely friend. They'd formed an odd kind of awareness of each other, perhaps because people went out of their way to ignore them both, her because of her insignificance, him because of his face.

He'd become a most welcome sight to her each day when she walked into Cersei's solar. On the day she entered the Red Keep, he had been the only person who smiled back at her. The others may have simpered and twisted their lips, but she didn't trust their eyes. She knew he meant it because he had answered her smile unwillingly. He didn't seem the sort who smiled often, but when she had unexpectedly caught his eyes and smiled he had quirked the unscarred side of his mouth up into the only expression of real warmth she could recall seeing in the Keep. Though she always had a smile for him, he didn't return it again, but his expressive eyes would change. She marveled at his self-control, then realized they were similarly skilled: he kept his face stony, she kept hers pleasing. They'd developed an odd language of darted glances and cocked eyebrows, and she imagined that he was laughing with her as they listened to the ridiculous preening of the other courtiers, or that he was joining her in indignation at Joffrey's latest infractions. Either way, he was the closest thing she had to a friend.

When her mother had died, she had felt utterly on her own, awash with grief with no one to turn to. He'd been tasked with seeing her back to her rooms. He had stopped her before she went into her rooms, on the verge of collapse. There had been warm sympathy in his eyes as he clumsily offered his condolences, sympathy that she had continued to see in his face in the following months, even years.

He pitied her. She might had felt resentful of it once, but she clung to it. Of all the people in the Keep, the Hound was the only one who felt anything other than indifference toward her, and she was desperate enough to take pity. Perhaps it was mutual. He pitied her for being abandoned and ignored, she pitied him for being degraded and scarred. Maybe they weren't that different.

She was musing on this darkly, not even past the first stacks, when the door to the library was flung wide with a bang. Helenna jumped, a hand flying to her throat. An exceptionally tall figure was standing in the doorway, backlit by the sharp contrast of blazing daylight and darkness.

The subject of her thoughts was in her library. She couldn't fathom why the Hound would be there. Surely he wasn't looking for her. She'd never encountered him there before, though she had spotted Maester Pycelle, Lord Arryn, and even Jaime Lannister. The Hound had never made an appearance. No, he wasn't there of his own accord. She smirked to even imagine a book in those rough hands. She thought it more likely he'd take up playing the lute and singing the chivalric ballads than read a book.

The image of him with a book engulfed in his colossal hands turned the smirk into a true smile.

"Can I help you, Clegane?"

"The queen would like you to come to her," he ground out. His voice was a raspy, low rumble. It was rusty, like the hinges of a door that hadn't been used in a long while. Though he spoke rarely, Lenna thought it was a strangely pleasant sound, rugged and low.

"Of course," she replied, walking toward him. He grunted.

He stood silently aside to let her pass, closing the doors behind them before falling into step a pace behind her shoulder with his helm tucked beneath his arm. Lenna had grown into a tall young woman, easily a hand or more taller than many of the other ladies. The queen was almost as tall as she was, but not quite. Standing next to the Hound, however, she felt positively diminutive. He towered over her like one of the statues in the Sept, the Warrior or the Smith, and just as silent. She appreciated this about him, so unlike the other guards who wanted to make small talk, to flirt. Not Clegane. All brusque, curt utterances, and economy of words. He never made her feel like she had to pretend, to chirp back pretty platitudes, to play games.

The cloisters were awash with afternoon sun. It was a beautiful walk, the courtyard a wide expanse of honey stone, broken here and there by fringed trees and bright flowers in iron pots. Helenna squinted in the sunshine, shielding her eyes from the quick and painful adjustment. She preferred the shaded walks of the gardens that stretched down to the water with their stands of trees, or the cool of the library. More sunlight meant more heat, and she despised it. She could already feel sweat resuming its trickle down her spine, and was annoyed thinking about how it must be staining through the dark fabric. She didn't care much for the fashions of the court, but she disliked appearing rumpled. It reminded her too clearly of her first audience with the queen.

She was puzzled and concerned by the Hound's appearance. She had never before been brought before Cersei during the course of the day, and certainly never sent for in such a way.

"How did you know where to find me?" She asked Clegane, looking up at him over her shoulder. He looked down at her askance, the good side of his face smooth as the harbor, always a contrast to the livid mass of scarring on his right side.

"No secrets in this place," he replied gruffly, his voice like gravel.

She nodded, a little frown pulling at her mouth.

The journey to the queen's chambers took less time than she thought it should, or perhaps it had seemed quicker because she was agitated by the time they reached the doors to the solar. She ran through the possibilities in her head, wondering if she were about to be sold off in some marriage pact. Her father had promised her that if such were to come to pass he would write her first. She'd been waiting four years and no such raven had come, much to her relief. She dismissed the idea, but her mind immediately reeled to the worse options of her father's illness or even death.

They'd stopped before the door. Clegane reached out a hand the size of a barrel to open it. Helenna quickly staid him, wrapping her fingers over his wrist. He wasn't wearing gauntlets, she noticed, and his skin was surprisingly smooth and warm. His gaze flicked to where her hand rested on his but his face remained impassive as he looked at her through the long fall of his hair.

"Please, just a moment," she whispered, trying valiantly to push down on the rising tide of worry in her gut. He grunted, stepping awkwardly back. She closed her eyes, took a steadying breath and squared her shoulders, unaware of his intense observation. She found a measure of calm and set her lips into a straight line. She looked up into his face and nodded, pressing her lips together in determination.

"Thank you, Clegane."

He looked down at her, a flicker of something in his gray eyes, and nodded.

Sandor IV

She had touched him. He had looked down on her little hand where it rested against his wrist with odd fascination, marveling at the feel of her soft fingertips against his skin. Her fingers were slender and pale, the nails trim but not manicured. He knew she picked them when she was thinking, but now they possessed a faint tremor. He hadn't seen her so agitated in years. He was accustomed to watching her predictable and quiet ways, every word and gesture measured and premeditated. Reaching out to him had not been thought through, it was an impulse.

Yet, even in her disquiet, she didn't flinch from his gaze. She looked up at him steadily, her eyes never wavering. It was a game he played frequently, seeing how long he could get people to look at him. There were serving wenches that never looked past his boots, though the boys and men of all stations tended to fare much better. Helenna Manderly had never failed. And he had long ago stopped trying to look away, accepting that he wanted to be trapped by her fine eyes and her smile.

His lips itched to return it, but even now, with the pleasure of her fingers against his wrist, he couldn't muster one. So he pressed his lips together and nodded in reassurance. It made something deep within him twitch with want.

"Took you long enough, Hound," Cersei said as they entered the solar, her voice hard. It didn't match the sweet curved lips or the bright emerald eyes.

"The library is big, your grace; a lot of nooks and crannies," he replied lowly, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed across the barrel-chest in his customary fashion, the royal children at his feet. Helenna caught his eye, and while she still looked apprehensive she cut him another little smile, like she was laughing at him. He quickly averted his gaze, feeling ridiculous. Six and half feet of brute strength towering over the toddling princes and princess. He knew he was as apt a nursemaid as a bear. He didn't need her smirks to feel foolish, he managed that quite well on his own.

She was still smiling as she went forward, the curtsey appearing almost reflexive, the good humor almost genuine, not a trace of the uneasiness he'd seen outside the door.

The queen rose from her cushioned chair on the dais. As was her custom, she was dressed a deep red gown with her golden hair loose and coursing over her shoulders.

"Lady Helenna. How long have you been in my service?" The queen said, her voice sounding bored. She always sounded spiritless. Despite her great beauty, Cersei had lost her luster. A woman with her looks should have shone like the sun, but Cersei's bright hair and skin were almost dun with her lack of spirit.

"Almost four years, your grace," Helenna replied softly. Four long years, Clegane thought to himself. Four years of dinners and morning audiences where he'd watch her from his post, and four years of chasing her face from his mind when he'd finally bed down for the night. He had a soft spot for the girl, one that was strangely sore and tender. He despised it with a fury. It made him feel foolish, and he hated feeling foolish.

"Four years?" Cersei sounded surprised. "Has it been that long? You must have been very young when you came to me." A little furrow appeared between the queen's golden brows. Clegane knew Helenna Manderly had been no little ward. She'd been tall already, though she'd grown since. She'd had the figure of a young woman, the distinct curve of breast and hip, the delicious angles of collar bones leading into a long, pale neck. He grunted to chase the thought away.

"No, your grace, I was fourteen when I came to you," Helenna replied evenly, her gaze now fixed on her hands. She'd carried herself with poise even then.

"How is it you are yet unmarried?" the queen asked, with what appeared to be genuine confusion.

He heard the girl let out a burst of breath that could have been a laugh. "My lord father has yet to make me a match, your grace." Her voice was matter of fact, a sprinkle of sarcasm flavoring her modulated tone.

If this was the line of questioning, Clegane thought, an imminent betrothal was unlikely. The thought relieved him. He had been faintly surprised when the queen had bade him find Helenna Manderly and bring her. If she was keen to see the girl, something must be afoot, and a girl of her station might expect to be informed of a marriage contract at her age. The thought that she might be sent away had sent a tremor of disappointment and sadness through him. The idea that she might be about to be married off to some little lordling had stirred his blood in a way that he didn't want to think about.

"Fathers and their daughters," Cersei replied, a knowledge in her eyes. "I am sure he would be loathe to lose you. You are pretty enough with that luxuriant hair and those fine eyes. Isn't she, Hound?"

Sizzling anger gathered in his belly as he turned his eyes to the queen. Why she delighted in plaguing him this way he didn't know. It was almost as if she knew where his thoughts tended, where his weaknesses were.

"Thank you, your grace," Lenna responded, shifting uncomfortably on her feet, heat creeping up the pale skin of her neck, saving him the embarrassment of making an answer. He would have agreed, of course. No one pretended that Helenna Manderly was plain, but neither was she beautiful like many of the ladies in the Red Keep were. While she had a fair and regular face with fine cheekbones and clear, creamy skin, she was rather too tall, and while not fat, not exactly a fashionable waif. She'd make someone a fine wife.

 _Not you._

"Perhaps he has something in store for you, my dove. A handsome lord of the North? Does he let nothing on when you go home?"

"I have not been home since I came to King's Landing, your grace." This admission cost her something in the telling. He detected it in the hitch of the breath, the tremor to the voice. It got his attention at the same moment that it drew the queen's. Clegane looked at her, and he felt sorry for her. He often did. He liked this girl, more than he wanted to, and in ways that he didn't want to think about. She made him feel like more than a brute, and he hated to watch her suffer all the fucking time.

He could forget the travesty that was his face for a few seconds each time she met his eye. There was no flash of pity or revulsion when she looked at him. She looked at him like he was anyone else, met his eyes without hesitation as if his face were whole and not destroyed. She smiled at him the same as she did everyone else, like she was pleased to see him. He suspected, oddly enough, that she was.

To hear heartsickness in her voice spoke to him in a way his gruff exterior would never belie. Her eyes had dimmed, looking faraway, pained, and wistful. It painfully brought to mind the night he'd spent outside her bedchamber, listening to her wail. Now there was longing in her voice, and it made a strange, faint ache spread through hsi chest.

"Never been home? Whyever not? Surely you miss it," the queen asked.

Cersei had grown fond of her quiet lady-in-waiting against her will. She didn't feel the need to fill silence foolishly. She did what was required of her and then she got out of the way. Cersei had said once that she wished she had a court full of Helenna Manderlys, pretty girls who weren't too pretty, quiet, well-mannered, and loyal. Clegane had thought such a court would be his personal waking nightmare. One was enough to plague his thoughts.

"I am in your service, your grace," Lenna replied evenly, the tremor erased. "It is not for me to decide when and where I should go. I bow to your grace's decisions and judgment."

"As it should be, I suppose," the queen replied with an upturned lip. "Which is what brings you here today. I have use of you, Lady Helenna."

"Your grace?" Helenna's brow knotted in confusion.

 _Now we get to the bloody point_ , Clegane thought. Trepidation welled up in him like quicksand, slow moving and thick.

"I had wondered where you got to every day, but was informed by my Hound that after you leave me in the mornings you go straight to our library. Is that so?"

Clegane felt a bolt of annoyance and dismay flash through his blood. It was all he could do to not react.

Helenna looked at him again, this time he pressed his lips together and avoided her scrutiny with a flash of embarrassment coursing through his chest.

"Yes, your grace, except for when I go to the Sept."

"Why do you go to the Sept?" she asked, as if such a concept was foreign to her, looking at the Clegane. He kept his eyes averted, pretending not to notice the queen's displeasure. Cersei saw the outward show of piety as some kind of weakness, a feebleness of the will. He'd found her devotion more admirable, though he didn't share it. He'd taken pleasure in watching her kneeling before the gods, her white hands lighting tapers in the shadows, her dark head bowed. He, who hated songs, had enjoyed listening to her fair voice.

"I go to pray, your grace," she replied.

"A pretty answer. After you pray, what do you do in the library?"

The girl took a deep, steady breath. "I study, your grace."

"That," the queen said with pleasure, "is exactly what I have been told, and exactly why you are standing before me, for all your worry and confusion. I can see it written in your eyes."

She flushed at this, color rushing to her cheeks. It happened with regularity, and it seemed to frustrate the girl, her eyes narrowing in such a way that it might have been imperceptible to those who didn't know her better. Clegane noticed. While he enjoyed the heightened color in her face he felt a spark of ire, angry at the queen for teasing her.

"Do not worry, little dove," the queen continued, noting how Lenna's cheeks had pinked. "I think you might actually enjoy how I intend to use you. It seems to me that you love the princes and princess. Indeed, I have been pleased with how taken they are with you. Myrcella is growing quickly, and I've watched you with her. Now, my family has always had a tradition of educating their daughters. I don't mean in the way that most noble girls are educated by a Septa, with needlework and dancing and that sort of thing. Of course we had that training, but in addition to it, we were taught history, philosophy, literature- the sort of thing that could prove useful to a woman of status. As she is still little, and it it isn't proper for her to be instructed along side the princes, indeed they have a very different curriculum, I have decided that I would like you to teach her. There isn't a septa in the city that has the skills I'm looking for, and when casting my eyes about for a suitable candidate, you were the natural choice."

"Me, your grace?" Helenna said, her eyes widening.

"Who better? You are well read, and I understand you speak several of the modern languages as well as can read in Old Valyrian."

The girl looked puzzled for a moment, her eyebrows coming together. She glanced to Clegane, who watched her from under the fall of his hair, and he pressed his lips together in acknowledgement, nodding his head subtly. He'd stopped following her, but he had been told to keep an eye on what she was studying. He didn't like reporting back what he'd seen to the queen, but what was he to do? He couldn't very well refuse Cersei, and she would know if he was lying. He was a terrible liar.

"And better yet," the queen continued, "you are a lady of good reputation. In fact, I have never heard so many people use the same word to describe one person, except for perhaps my Hound."

"What word is that, your grace?" She asked softly, genuinely curious.

"Kind," she said, casting an almost coy look in the guard's direction, "And I would want a kind instructor for my girl. She is a sweet child, a little girl still, but it is time she began to learn the things that will help her in life, give her a sense of where she fits into this family, this kingdom. Can you do that?"

"I can certainly try, your grace," the girl replied evenly.

"Good. You'll begin tomorrow morning, after breakfast," Cersei declared with finality. "Three days a week from breakfast until noon. She must attend her other lessons in addition, you see. You'll attend me, then eat with the children each day, even when Myrcella isn't to come with you. When the boys go to the Maester those three days, you'll take Myrcella to the library. If you require anything you need only ask. My Hound will accompany you, of course."

"Your grace?" he erupted, startled by the announcement. He'd been assigned to the family, of course, but his main concern had always been the little Crown Prince, Joffrey. He didn't know what to make of this new assignment, wondering if it was some sort of demotion.

"There are plenty of king's guard to keep watch of the boys in that part of the keep, but I cannot send my precious girl off on her own, now can I, dog?"

He hated being called a dog, but he hated it even more that it was in Helenna Manderly's hearing.

"Do you swear to take on the duty of keeping the Princess Myrcella from harm while she is in your charge?"

"Aye, your grace," he replied without hesitation. For someone who abhorred vows, that one rolled off his tongue with surprising ease.

"And do you swear to keep Lady Helenna from harm?"

This request came as a surprise, and he cut his eyes over to the young lady. She looked back at him openly but he couldn't read her expression. Would he swear to protect her? _Yes, even if it means protecting her from myself._

"Aye," he replied. "I do so swear." As he spoke, his eyes never left hers. She looked away with the barest indentation of a furrow between her dark brows.

"Then the matter is settled. I'll expect to see you tomorrow before breakfast, Lady Helenna." Cersei dismissed her with the slightest wave of her hand.

"Yes, your grace," she replied with a murmur, brought out of her thoughts.

"You may go," the queen said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, raising a glass of summer wine to her lips. Helenna dropped a hasty curtsey and with a single glance at Clegane, who met her gaze boldly, wondering what he just gotten into.


	7. Chapter 7

Sandor V

The doors closed behind them, and for a moment both stood silent and still. The Manderly girl turned to him.

"What just happened?" she asked quietly.

He didn't reply. He was asking himself the same thing. He didn't know how to explain to the girl how her world had just changed. He remembered when he'd been selected out of the ranks of the Lannister army to guard the new queen and her family. He'd never been one for friends, but his new status conferred a grudging respect and fear. His proximity to the family was a distinction. Some had even tried to use him to curry favor. He'd run them off with curses and growling, something this girl would be unable to do.

He looked at her hard. Her eyes were full of confusion, a touch of fear. She didn't know it yet, but she'd just become a Lannister woman. Whether she wanted to or not.

"You're theirs now," he said lowly, just loud enough for her to hear.

Her face paled, only detectable in her lips, which went from rose to white in the space of a breath.

"What does that mean?" she asked, her eyes searching his.

"Don't forget, even for a minute, where your loyalty lies now."

She took a deep breath in, letting it out slowly. "I should think."

His lips twitched and her face softened. "Best not think too hard, my lady. Keep your wits about you, though."

She nodded, her expression thoughtful. "I suppose I shall see you in the morning."

"My lady," he replied, spinning on his heel.

His brain was in a quagmire as he headed for the training yards. He hadn't known what to say to the girl, hadn't known what words to use to counsel her. He was in too much a state of disbelief himself. The girl didn't understand what had happened, and probably wouldn't for quite a while. She wouldn't realize that being brought closer to the family meant that she was their possession, their tool. She might never realize it, the situation may never present itself where she would be forced to make the hard choice. If she did, he hoped to the gods she recognized it and made the right decision. The Lannisters did not forget betrayals, and they understood a much more liberal definition of the word.

He arrived at the training yards in a huff of pent-up aggravation. He couldn't identify exactly why or what he was feeling. It wasn't his usual day to work with his longsword, but he felt the need to hack at something. Anything to calm his brain.

He went straight for the pell. No warm up, just drew his sword and set to work. It was good to feel the strain of his muscles, the way the sword shuddered when it made contact with the wooden dummy. The flex and strain of sinew gave him something real to focus on. He usually imagined that the damn thing was his brother, it made it easier to draw up his rage. He fought better when he was angry, and he was certainly in high emotion today, but not at his brother for once.

Slamming his weapon against the pell usually made him feel better. He used the exercise to take his mind off things that bothered him, caught up in the physicality of it, the pain and the tension and the clash of bone and muscle and steel. He often couldn't remember practicing or fighting, white rage turning his memory blissfully blank. He used to be able to rely on sleep for that kind of relief as well, but now that was haunted by green eyes. Now it seemed she had invaded his training, too.

Try as he might, he could not get her out of his mind.

By the time he was finished, the pell lay on the ground in splinters. He was shaking with exertion, sweat pouring down his face and stinging his eyes. He felt better, but still frustrated as he wiped the back of his hand across his nose. He was breathing hard, overcome with a wave of nameless fury.

An assignment was an assignment. He would do his duty, and he'd do it well, damn it. It didn't matter that he'd be with her more than he already was. It didn't matter that they'd be alone save for the child. It didn't matter than he'd meant it when he'd sworn to protect her.

When the words left his lips at the queen's bidding, he thought briefly of one of the illustrations in that damn book she kept in the solar. It was the one with the red binding that she'd brought on her first day, her childhood keepsake. There was a story she read to the children about a knight who, for love, pledged himself to a lady without her knowing, serving her even when he was far away, thinking and acting only for her. The lady never knew it until the knight lay dying, and then it was revealed that she had loved him, too.

The drawing showed the knight standing apart from his lady as she walked with her friends. The other maids were fair, but he looked only at her. Even in the illustration, he was motionless, his arms hanging limply by his sides as if he were struck helpless. She walked on with her nose pressed to a flower, unaware of his look of utter devotion.

He'd felt like that damned knight when he'd looked in her eyes and said those words, feeling them ensnare the very bedrock of his being. He felt helpless and woebegone, though he refused to call his affinity for the girl love. That was something he didn't know how to do, how to feel. This nameless devotion must be something else. He felt honor-bound to the girl now that the pledge was made, that was all.

 _Fucking stupid dog._

He resheathed his sword with a snarl, lunging toward the bath house. If he could smell himself, he knew he reeked. A hasty scrub and he changed into fresh clothes, replacing his armor and heading off toward Flea Bottom. He needed ale, and a lot of it.

It was dusk, and when he entered the alehouse there were several guards already sitting at the long tables. He cursed to himself when he recognized the white cloaks of Preston Greenfield and Meryn Trant.

"Oy! Dog!" Greenfield shouted, raising his tankard in his direction. Clegane growled under his breath. He couldn't leave now.

He stalked toward the table, feeling the slow burn of his overworked muscles and feeling glad of the pain, glad to have something else to think about. He lowered himself heavily onto the bench and a serving wench immediately placed a tankard in front of him. He drained it in one go, his adam's apple working unremittingly, wiping his mouth and scowling as he handed it back to her. With wide eyes she went to refill it again.

"If that scowl could kill, we'd be out of a job," Greenfield said, looking at Clegane over the rim of his own mug.

Clegane grunted.

"What, not going to tell us?" Trant goaded him. Clegane looked between the two of them. He deeply regretted his choice of alehouse.

"New assignment," he muttered.

"It has to be better than watching the brats," Greenfield replied, draining his cup. He raised it to signal the barmaid for more. Preston Greenfield was a short, stocky fellow that Clegane found tolerable. He was certainly better company than Trant. He hated the very sight of Trant.

"As if being a Kingsguard these days is much better. At least we get the added entertainment of watching the king fuck and drink. Not much threat in a flagon of ale or one of Baelish's girls." Trant eyed Clegane slyly. "Can't imagine being a nursemaid, though."

"Don't see that there's much difference," Clegane muttered.

"Well, what's it to be then?"

"The princess is to start lessons. With a tutor."

"A tutor. Some desert-cunted old Septa. I feel for you," Greenfield said, grinning as a new beer arrived.

Clegane shook his head. An old bat he would have suffered willingly. "No. A lady."

Trant's brow furrowed. His dark eyes were clever, and Clegane knew he shouldn't have said anything. "Not that dark-headed one, the girl who plays with them?"

"Why'd they pick a big fucker like you to look after one little princess? And a maid?" Greenfield shook his head as he continued to swill. He burped loudly.

He'd asked himself the same thing all afternoon. Each time he had slammed his pommel, hilt, or blade into the pell. _Why? Why me? Why her?_

"Not for me to ask questions," he replied. To say he wasn't happy about the reassignment was an understatement. Despite Trant's ribbing, he knew his post was an honor. It was a privilege to guard the royal family, one he never could have looked for or expected. Especially since he had steadfastly refused to take vows like his brother.

He'd been asked, more than once, to take vows of knighthood. After all, who wouldn't want someone like him sworn to serve them? He knew he was ugly, but he also knew he was strong. Stronger than everyone he'd ever met with one key, glaring exception.

Gregor Clegane had six inches and ten stone on him, earning him the nickname the Mountain that Rides. It was Gregor that put him off knighthood, taking vows of sacred duty and flagrantly flouting every last one of them. There was no one more dishonorable than his brother, and Clegane would have hated him for that even if he hadn't disfigured him for life. His brother was a violent, brutish, raping monster, and Sandor Clegane wanted nothing to do with any group of men that would include his brother as a member.

He'd spent the rest of his youth making up for what he lacked in size. He was arguably the more skilled of the two. Gregor relied on brute force rather than skill, but Sandor was agile for all his hulking size. He was equally skilled with every weapon in the armory, he could ride well, and he had trained himself to see things other people missed and find weaknesses. The one skill he'd never mastered was archery, simply because he found it boring. He didn't want to stand at a distance to take out his target, he wanted to see what he'd done, watch as they bled and gasped and died.

He imagined that every last man he'd ever hurt or killed was Gregor, and he looked forward to the day when he would visit his own kind of justice on his head.

Of course, Gregor was his only real competition. He could have bested Meryn Trant one handed with his sword-arm tied behind his back. It was a tempting thought.

"She's a right nice piece, tell the truth," Trant said, his mouth pulling down in an appraising frown.

"Shut it." He hadn't meant to say anything, but just hearing Trant talk about her made his hackles rise. His sword hand started to itch.

It was the wrong thing to say. He didn't like Meryn Trant. Though a knight and a Kingsguard, Trant fell into the same category as his cunt brother. He'd heard rumors of the man's cruelty, and he didn't doubt their truth. Greenfield didn't keep his vows either, but the most egregious thing he did was keep company with a draper's wife in the city when her husband was away on business. Trant had a reputation for liking young girls, and he didn't like the way the other man's eyes lit up at the thought of Helenna Manderly.

"I don't think I'd be complain about being cooped up with that maid, from what I remember. A little odd, sure, but pretty."

"That Manderly girl?" Greenfield asked. "Aye, I'd not be complaining, dog." Greenfield winked at him and Clegane fought down a growl.

"A bit too old for you, isn't she, Trant?" he muttered, his hands tightening around his tankard.

Trant cocked an eyebrow at him.

"I don't pass up an opportunity when it presents itself, do you, Greenfield?" Preston was an idiot who didn't understand that something was growing between his two companions. Clegane and Trant started at each other, Trant's eyes glittering with mischief. He had caught on, too clever for his own good, and he was going to do anything in his power to prod Clegane.

"No, indeed," Greenfield replied with a sick chuckle.

"She's a pretty thing, and not exactly popular. Girls like that you can do anything you like, even the highborns. She won't run telling."

"Shut your fucking mouth, Trant."

Trant sat back, resting his tankard on the table, his face hardening like a coin. A slow smirk spread.

"Touched a nerve, did I? Already thought about it, haven't you, dog? Really think a maid like that would let you touch her?"

"She might," Greenfield added, still oblivious to the veritable lightning Clegane was flashing across the table. "She's quiet and high-born, too, so you know she's a virgin."

"Have you thought about it, dog?" Trant said, leaning forward, "sinking into that tight-"

"I told you to shut the fuck up."

Clegane rose to his feet, looming over the two Kingsguard, his blood at a boil. He hated them. He hated them with every muscle and tendon in his body. Not just because they were vulgar and disrespectful of a lady, but because they were _right_. He had thought about it. He had thought about it every night since she'd first fucking smiled at him. He hated himself for it, and to hear them talk about it, about _her_ , so lewdly made a dark eddy of fury well up in his chest.

"Or what, dog? You'll attack two members of the Kingsguard? How do you think that will end for you?" Trant looked up at him with that damned smirk, refusing to be fussed.

"Who would stop me? Your white cloaks mean shit, no man here would fight with you. Not against me."

Trant stood up slowly. He only came to Sandor's chin. Greenfield rose beside him. He only reached his shoulder.

"Alright, I dare you, cur. Take a swing at me." Trant's face had grown severe and he raised his chin with arrogant defiance.

"Now, Meryn, no need for a fight," Greenfield said, trying to placate his companion.

Clegane didn't wait to see if he would back down at his friend's suggestion. He slammed his fist right into Trant's smug face. The crunch of of his knuckles felt good when his fist connected with his nose. Blood gushed from Trant's nostrils and he went over, sprawled on the alehouse floor.

Greenfield raised both hands in surrender, backing away slowly.

"I've no quarrel with you, Clegane."

 _Coward._

"Truth be told, he had it coming," Greenfield continued, looking down at Trant. "He shouldn't have talked about a lady like that, and neither should I. Tell you what, here." Greenfield withdrew a pouch of coin and tossed it on the table. "It's all on me. In apology."

Trant was coming around on the floor and Greenfield stooped to help him up. Once Trant was on his feet, Greenfield slung an arm around him and led him staggering out of the alehouse.

Clegane sat down again. His mug had been refilled. He took a deep swig and flexed his fingers, grimacing at the sting.

His hand was swollen the next morning, and he bound it as tightly as he could with his off-hand. It was a clumsy job, but it would have to do. The pounding in his head, however, he could do nothing about. He'd stayed at the alehouse until he was the last man sitting on the benches, stumbling back to his bunk before succumbing to the sweet blackness of a drunken sleep.

He appeared in the children's breakfast room and she was already there. She was dressed in a dark blue, the color settling against her skin like a friend. She stood up when he entered, flashing him a brilliant smile.

His throat went dry.

"Good morning, Clegane," she said.

He couldn't speak, so he settled for a grunt, crossing as far away from her as possible. He stood and looked out the window, keeping his front to the door.

The little princess was just finishing her breakfast. Her nurse came in and quickly whisked her out to change, leaving Clegane and the girl alone in the room.

"What happened to your hand?"

He was startled and turned to find her standing just an arm's-length away. Her eyes were narrowed with concern as she pointed to his fist.

"Clumsy in training," he muttered. She looked at him skeptically. Something in him swelled.

"Did you bind it yourself? It doesn't look very tight. May I?"

Before he knew what he was doing, he'd offered his paw to her. He watched in fascination as her little pale fingers undid his clumsy knot and unwound the bandage. When his knuckles were exposed to the air, he almost hissed at the sting.

"You need a salve," she tsked. To his wonderment, she went to the table and picked up a bag from the floor that he hadn't noticed. She fished around in it and produced a little tin, like a cosmetic container. She must have seen his bewildered expression. She smiled a little sheepishly. "I thought it might come in handy with the princess. I tried to take your advice, but I probably overdid it. I kept coming up with things I might need, and well, let's just say I'll be glad if that bag doesn't rip apart at the seams."

She returned to his side, twisting the lid off. It smelled like lavender and honey. She dipped her fingers into the tin, scooping up a quantity of yellowish paste. Setting the tin aside, she surprised him further by matter of factly seizing his hand with hers and spreading the salve over his angry busted knuckles with her fingertips.

She dabbed it on and smoothed it out before carefully rewrapping the bandage and tying it with a neat little knot.

"That's better," she said quietly, smiling up at him gently.

He nodded. He knew he should thank her, but he couldn't find the words. A nod would have to do.

She smiled at him a little more confidently than before, moving to replace the salve.

The little princess rejoined them almost instantly, and then they were off to the library, the three of them like some odd, cobbled family. He continuously flexed and clenched his injured hand. It burned, not from the salve or his battered knuckles, but from the memory of her hand in his.

 _This is going to be hell_ , he thought. _An absolute fucking nightmare._

Lenna V

Lenna shielded the flame of her taper with her palm as she walked through the darkened Keep. She was wrapped in her darkest cloak, the hood up to conceal her face. She doubted she would meet anyone at her destination or along the way, but it made her nervous each and every time she stepped outside her door after dark.

The walk seemed to take longer at night, each sound reverberating sharper and more loudly than usual, striking her alerted nerves. The cloisters, beautiful in the sunlight, were somber and almost threatening at night, the moon casting strange shadows through their intricately carved arches. It made her think of the ghost stories her mother had told her as a child, and a delicious chill ran along her spine.

Once inside, she went immediately to her destination. She had been worried that her spot in the stacks would be supplanted by the princess's lessons, but she needn't have feared. The queen had arranged a little schoolroom of sorts close to the entrance. It was well-lit during the day and organized neatly for their studies: a tiny desk and a tiny chair, a blackboard, baskets of colorful blocks and puzzles. Lenna had her own desk near the princess's, and she did sit there from time to time to plan out what she would do for Myrcella's next lesson, but most of the time when she came to the library on her own she went straight to her back corner.

She had commandeered a long table in full view of the only large window in the building. It was almost a story tall, surrounded by books with naked spines on all sides. An initial investigation had shown them to be rather dry household ledgers. Nothing exciting. The window also had a heavy drape, and the day she pulled it aside she had discovered that it hid a wide ledge perfect for sitting concealed. Someone, who knows when, had covered the thing with cushions, now dusty. A few good thwacks and she had found them serviceable enough, finding great pleasure in reading there in the sunshine. Anyone who passed through the library would never know she was there, and she was too high up, overlooking the water, for anyone from the outside to see.

She set her taper against the wick of the lamp on her table, replacing the dome and turning the knob, watching the golden light spill across the books. She immediately felt her shoulders relax.

She'd taken to coming to the library at night shortly after her mother died and she stopped sleeping peacefully. It had been nightmares to start, then an endless wakefulness that tormented her. She'd tried warm milk, despite her maid, Starla's, protests. The girl didn't like being dragged out of bed in the middle of the night. So, she'd tried counting sheep. She'd even taken to pacing, trying to tire herself out, but nothing worked. After several months of pacing back and forth between one wall and the other, she could bear it no longer, and she'd fled one night in a flurry of frustration in just her nightgown and robe.

It had proven to be profitable in many ways. She found she did her best thinking in those wee hours of the morning, bent over a scroll in the golden lamplight. She picked her way through book after book, scrawling her notes at her leisure, amazed at how much information there was and how few people seemed to know anything about it. She puzzled at the Maesters hoarding it all for themselves. Surely there was some practical application for it. If it was worth writing down, it was worth reading, and if it was worth reading, it must serve some greater purpose. She just didn't know what.

She settled into her chair, a widebacked thing more suited to an evening by the fireside than for study, and found her bookmark, opening the volume on the history of House Targaryen. She had seen at least one book on her own family and resolved to read it, but found herself unable to bring herself to pull it from the shelf. How could grief still be so fresh?

Hours passed as she sat there, and she was so engrossed in her reading that she didn't even hear the doors open or the approach of footsteps.

"What an unexpectedly lovely surprise."

She was so startled she broke the nib of her pen.

A small figure stood just in the circle of her lamplight. He was holding a full decanter of wine in one hand, and a goblet dangled from the other. His expression was smug, his mismatched eyes glinting in unconcealed delight. He was not a lovely person, his forehead too high, his nose too narrow and turned up sharply, giving him an aspect not unlike a lapdog, but intelligence and humor sparkled in his eyes, one black, one green. The Imp was a rather fitting moniker.

"My lord," Lenna said, remembering herself and managing rise and curtsey, feeling ridiculous for doing so in her dressing gown. What else was one supposed to do when greeting the brother of the queen, no matter the hour or circumstance?

"Aren't you one of my sister's ladies? Lady Helenna, isn't it?

Lenna was surprised that he knew her. "Yes, my lord." She had encountered him once or twice at banquets, refilling his cup and astonished at how much he could drink. He put both the queen and the king to shame without so much as a stumble, a feat for someone of his stature.

"Does my sister know that you are here?" Every syllable was pronounced with aristocratic precision. He moved toward her table and set his goblet down, pouring himself a glass of the wine while looking up at her from beneath his mop of tawny curls.

Lenna debated briefly how best to answer the question, but opted for the truth. "No, my lord."

He looked at her for a long moment, eyes flashing serious. Then his mouth curled up in an impudent smirk. He raised his glass to her. "Good. Let's keep it that way."

He tossed back the rest of the contents of his glass and filled it again.

"May I sit?"

She must have hesitated.

"I won't bite," he said slyly. Then, with a cocked eyebrow, "Unless you ask, of course."

Lenna felt a blush creep from her neck to her hair. He noticed it immediately, his smile dimming and the flirtatious glint in his eyes vanishing.

"Forgive me," he said. "I should have known such humor would not be to your taste. I forget myself sometimes." He looked genuinely contrite, and Lenna decided that she liked him. "Please, sit with me. I'd offer you wine, but I'm afraid I only have the one glass. I wasn't anticipating company."

"I can go, my lord."

"Don't," he said quickly. "If anyone should go, it should be me. You have the prior claim. However, I'm disinclined to go. I'm actually quite charmed by your company, and would rather stay. And please, let's dispense with the formalities. The hour is not suited to 'my lords' and 'my ladies.' Call me Tyrion."

Lenna nodded.

"May I call you Helenna?"

"No," she replied quickly, and he looked abashed. She smiled faintly, wanting to quickly amend the affront. "Lenna. Please."

"Lenna," he repeated, rolling it over on his tongue. "Rather pretty. Like you."

She blushed again but didn't respond, not sure what she should say or do. If he noticed, he didn't remark on it. Instead, he reached across the table and pulled a sheaf of her papers towards him.

"Tell me, Lenna, are you the scholar responsible for all of this?" He was skimming her notes, the mismatched eyes moving quickly. "Your right hand tells me that it is likely."

Lenna's eyes widened and she looked at the hand in question, noting the dark smudge between her thumb and forefinger.

"Yes, my- Tyrion."

"Well then, we will have plenty to talk about won't we?"

And they did. It became readily apparent that Tyrion Lannister was an equal, if not superior, scholar. He went through her notes in astonishingly little time, picking apart certain arguments, answering questions, and augmenting point after point. He grilled her on the particulars of a translation she had set aside a month before, and she was able to rectify the lines that caused her to give up on it in the first place with his help. She lost track of the time as they talked late into the night. Tyrion only shooed her away when the sky outside the window began to lighten.

"Best not be caught out of your room at this hour. You know how tongues would wag."

Lenna smiled brightly, and the Imp returned it.

"If you are inclined to go nightwalking again, Lenna, do make sure to find your way back here."

She had spent the next day in happy fatigue. She must have been smiling at breakfast as Cersei noted it.

"Lady Helenna, you are looking well this morning. It does my heart good to see you in better spirits."

"Thank you, your grace," she replied, filling the queen's goblet again. She fought the wider smile that threatened to creep across her face, wondering what the queen would do if she knew it was her least favorite brother that had brought back a measure of her joy.

Instead of going to the Sept, Lenna went back to her room for a nap that day. She wanted to be prepared for the evening if she was going to go back to the library. She had been mulling over questions to ask him all day, sitting distractedly with the little princess in the solar after her embroidery was put away. She couldn't wait until after dinner and the rest of the Keep was abed.

She crept out of her room again, this time in her usual clothes instead of her nightgown. When she arrived at the library, lamplight was already glowing in the back of the room. She felt a bit like a princess in one of the stories she'd loved as a child, stumbling into a hidden kingdom protected by an Imp. She quietly made her way to the back, running her hand along the stacks absently.

Tyrion was there, tiny spectacles on his nose, and there were two glasses on the table with the decanter instead of just one.


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: Thank you to everyone who has been reading! I get a big boost of energy to keep writing from the reviews, so thank you if you've taken the time to leave one! Brookeworme- I hadn't originally planned much with Robert, but he's making a special appearance in this chapter just for you. Hope everyone enjoys!

The song in this chapter is John Dowland's "Come Again, Sweet Love." I've always loved it, and found that writing a good song is difficult. Lifted this one instead as it sound precisely like something our friends might hear in Cersei's court. Check out the recordings of it if you are curious. I am extremely partial to Sting's rendition of rather than the more academic, period-appropriate ones.

Lenna VI

Becoming the little princess' tutor had an instantaneous effect on Lenna's status in the Keep. Her absence must have been noted at breakfast and explained, for all of a sudden, courtiers who hadn't previously given her the barest hint of attention now bid her good morning with smiles and respectful nods of their heads. It turned her stomach and made her so angry she could barely muster the courtesy to make the customary replies.

The first few times it had happened she had been so flummoxed she was sure it had shown on her face. After the first week, she had developed the automatic response of a smile and a murmur in return, even though it absolutely galled her to do so. These were the same people who had snubbed her for four years, only now speaking to her because she had some little distinction.

Only it wasn't just a little distinction. It was prestige. Clegane had hinted at it that day he'd brought her to the queen. She knew now that he'd been struggling to warn her, and she understood why. It was unexplainable, this odd game she now found herself unwittingly playing. There were quite obviously rules, rules she wasn't privy to but expected to play by. She was now part of the royal family's circle in a way she never anticipated or desired. She took her breakfast with the children of course, but was now found herself at the family table at the evening banquets as well. Where in the past she could blend into the walls with her pitcher and slip out unnoticed, she now found herself practically on display during the evening meal, expected to stay with Myrcella until the nurse came to take the little girl to bed.

The dinners were always rather grand affairs. She'd been to many banquets, but they'd always been held for special occasions at home. Dinner in the Red Keep was far more elaborate than any of her father's feasts, the tables laden with rich food and wine. She was expected to dress for dinner as well, and had to order a few additional gowns in richer colors to wear in the evening. Nothing ostentatious, of course, but jeweled tones of deep green and wine that were more in keeping with the formality of the meal.

She was wearing a claret-colored dress tonight. She tended to stay away from reds, they were too flashy to her, and she didn't know why she had ordered this one at all. It was quite out of the ordinary for her. She preferred cooler colors that reminded her of home. She was picking at a stray thread as she waited for the nurse to collect the children. Myrcella and Tommen were both being fussy, and Joffrey was being more of a prig than usual. He was currently running around the hall throwing grapes at guests who indulgently laughed. If she wasn't keenly aware of both her observers, she would have rolled her eyes.

One watcher was Clegane, who stood straight-backed against the wall. He hadn't moved a muscle since the meal began, and Lenna wondered at his self-control. She often did. She flattered herself that she had figured out a few of his mannerisms well enough to guess at what he was thinking, but tonight his eyes betrayed nothing of his thoughts, steely and blank. It troubled her, she was so used to being able to read him. In fact, she'd been having difficulty doing so for several weeks. Something between them had closed off since she'd been working with the princess, despite being thrown into each other's company far more frequently. It pained her and it puzzled her. Now, the expression on his face was shuttered, but his gaze remained intent, even when her eyes met his. It almost made her uncomfortable, and she missed the odd rapport they'd had.

The other eyes were mis-matched and mischievous, and there was plenty of brow-waggling and smirking to be had from their owner when she glanced his way. Tyrion Lannister was seated at the head table with his sister and brother-in-law. His elder brother, Cersei's twin, was also in attendance with the rest of the Kingsguard, but Jaime Lannister had never spoken to Lenna that she could remember. Tyrion, on the other hand, was being quite conspicuous in his attention, or at least it felt that way to Lenna.

Truthfully, she didn't mind. They had built a fast and easy friendship, Tyrion treating Lenna much as her own brothers had once upon a time. No one knew of the many hours they had passed together in the library, late into the nights after dinner. It felt wonderfully secretive, even though her inclination toward him was purely brotherly. She was certain that for all of his compliments and flirtatious talk he viewed her as something of a little sister. He teased her mercilessly, but he was her biggest supporter. It was clear that he had elected himself as some kind of teacher, setting her assignments and quizzing her on her studies. She, in turn, teased him back and delighted in having a friend. They were two cut from the same cloth. She had a sneaking suspicion that he was almost as lonely as she was.

He caught her attention and rolled his eyes at something Joffrey had done, almost breaking Lenna's resolve to keep her face neutral. The nurse entered at that moment to collect the children. Lenna rose to leave as well, grateful that she was to be finally free.

"Lady Helenna, do not feel you have to go when the children do. You are not their nurse," Cersei called, noticing Lenna's move to exit.

"Oh, your grace, I had not thought to stay." Lenna looked around warily, desperately wishing to escape. She had planned to slip into the library later, looking forward to a tricky bit of translation before Tyrion joined her.

"But my sister has brought in a fine lutenist to play. Don't all young ladies enjoy music?"

The voice came from her elbow, and when Lenna turned she smiled despite herself.

"Lady Helenna, have you met my youngest brother?" Cersei asked, her voice dripping with disdain.

"Our paths have crossed a time or two," Tyrion replied, taking her hand and bowing over it with mischief in his eyes. _Oh, Cersei would be so angry if she knew just how often_ , Lenna thought.

"Of course I enjoy music, my lord," she replied, dipping a curtsey.

"Won't you sit by me? You mustn't sit alone, after all." Lenna looked at him, her eyes flashing. She truly wanted to leave, but she knew she couldn't refuse him twice in front of his queenly sister.

He gestured to a chair, and Lenna sat, shooting him a bit of a glare and a purse of her lips. The hall was beginning to empty out bit by bit, people heading to bed despite the promise of music.

She turned to look at her companion. He was studying her with clever eyes, his lips slightly puckered together in a faint smirk, his goblet poised at his lips. He had a rakish air to him that made it impossible for her to stay annoyed with him.

A young man entered the hall, a lute slung over his shoulders. He made a low bow to the head table. The queen nodded her head, but King Robert was too busy jawing with his Hand, John Arryn, to take note of him.

A stool was brought and he sat, tuning his instrument before beginning to play a lay of surpassing sweetness. Lenna found herself transfixed by his playing, watching as his fingers danced over the fingerboard. He seemed bewitched himself, his eyes fixed on the floor, his head and shoulders moving, not in rhythm, but to something more primal and instinctual than mere meter.

"I see you are very fond of music."

Lenna tore her eyes away to look back at Tyrion.

"Aye," she replied, only then realizing that there were tears in her eyes.

"Remind me, do you play?"

"No, my lord. But I do sing a little."

"A little? Then we must have a song."

"No, my lord!" she exclaimed, but it was too late. He signaled the musician. The lutenist curtly nodded, acknowledging the summons. When he finished, he rose and approached them. The melancholy pleasure she had felt listening to the lute changed in an instant to indignation toward her traitorous friend.

"A request, my lord?" he asked.

"My lady has promised me a song," he said, and Lenna had to forcefully bite down on her tongue to keep from protesting.

"I can play whatever she wishes, my lord."

"Well, Lady Helenna, what do you know?"

Lenna smiled tightly, looking at Tyrion. "I'm not sure I would know…"

"I'd hear 'Come Again, Sweet Love.' That is, if you both know it," Tyrion suggested with a waggle of his brows.

She did know it, and knew Tyrion was aware of the fact. They had discussed it just the other evening. They'd gotten off topic, discussing the merits of poetry and music. Lenna had mentioned it as a particular favorite, and Tyrion had ridiculed her for having a maidenly predilection for star-crossed and unrequited love. He had made her quite cross, forcing her to admit that _yes_ , she _did_ enjoy the melodramatic tales of courtly love he found so ridiculous. She'd determined that he didn't have a romantic bone in his body, at least not yet. And now he wanted her to sing it for him, in front of all those people, exposing her frivolity to the entire court.

The young man smiled at her and gestured to the floor. Another stool had been brought and she found herself seated on it without delay. With deliberation, she schooled her features into something more pleasing than the peevishness that she felt.

She looked up at the table to find not only Tyrion's eyes on her, but also Cersei's and Clegane's. The guard stood with his back to the wall behind the king and queen, his face implacable as usual. As she looked at him, he tore his eyes from hers and looked at the floor, his hair swinging forward to cover his face. If it wasn't him, she would have sworn his color heightened.

The young lutenist touched her sleeve lightly, asking quietly if she was ready. She smiled and nodded. He positioned his instrument and began to play.

 _Come again, sweet love doth now invite_

 _Thy graces that refrain to do me due delight,_

 _To see, to hear, to touch, to kiss, to die_

 _With thee again in sweetest sympathy._

 _Come again, that I may cease to mourn_

 _Through thy unkind disdain for now left and forlorn,_

 _I sit, I sight, I faint, I weep, I die_

 _In deadly pain and endless misery._

 _All the day, the sun that lends me shine_

 _By frowns do cause me pine and feeds me with delay_

 _Her smiles, my springs that make my joy to grow_

 _Her frowns the winter of my woe._

 _All the night, my sleeps are full of dreams_

 _My eyes are full of streams, my heart takes no delight_

 _To see the fruits and joys that some do find_

 _And mark the storms are me assigned._

 _Out alas, my faith is ever true_

 _Yet she will never rue, nor yield me any grace;_

 _Her eyes of fire, her heart of flint is made,_

 _Whom tears nor truth may once invade._

 _Gentle love, draw forth thy wounding dart,_

 _Thou canst not pierce her heart, for that I do approve,_

 _By sighs and tears more hot than are thy shafts_

 _Did tempt while she for triumph laughs._

When the last chord was struck, Lenna was startled by the applause. Despite herself, she'd gotten quite caught up in the song, enjoying the easy back and forth the lutenist had established with her. The young man was smiling broadly at her.

"You have a fine voice, my lady," he said over the din. "I'd not expect a professional to do it better."

Lenna blushed with pleasure. He stood and offered her his hand. She took it gingerly in hers and stood to face the queen. The two of them bowed together, and Lenna felt a bubble of joy at the continued applause.

Tyrion Lannister was standing in his chair, clapping loudly and beaming at her. Beside her stood his sister and brother, both clapping as enthusiastically. Jaime Lannister winked at her, flustering her. Even the king was applauding, adding his voice to the whoops and yells of some of the drunker tables.

The only person in the room not clapping was Clegane. He remained stock still against the wall. His hair was still obscuring his expression, but she knew his eyes were rooted on her face as surely as if he'd touched her.

"What a fine instrument. Both the lute and the girl!" The king's booming voice rang out. He turned to his wife. "My dear, isn't that the Manderly girl?"

Cersei waved to Lenna to approach them. Lenna hurried back to the table. The king had stood, reaching out both hands to her. Lenna took them, curtseying quickly as she did.

King Robert was a broad man who had once been brawny, but who was now merely large. Her reminded her of her father in some ways, from the girth of his belly to the merry, mad glint in his eyes. He was as dark as the queen was fair, and he commanded the room with a bombastic presence. Lenna had met him once or twice, but he had taken no great notice of her before. She tried to keep her composure even as she felt her cheeks darken yet again.

"Don't take after old Wyman, do you girl? Far prettier than I'd ever have thought he'd get. Good man, your father."

"Thank you, your grace."

"It is I who should be thanking you, my lady," he said, squeezing her hands. "Who knew we had such talent in our midst."

"I hardly think, your grace-"

"Take the compliment, girl," he growled, and for a moment Lenna thought he was cross. Then he laughed that great, booming laugh. "Will you give us another song, then?"

Lenna knew she couldn't refuse, but being the focus on everyone's attention was starting to make her feel on edge. The queen must have seen her stuttering for a reply.

"My love, let's allow the girl to rest for tonight. She never thought she'd end up performing, did you, my dove?"

"No, your grace," she replied gratefully.

"We mustn't let her get away," the king replied.

"No risk of that, my love. Remember, she's Myrcella's tutor now."

"Is that right? Well, if a little of that rubs off on Myrcella, she'll have her pick of princes."

Cersei rolled her eyes behind her husband's back. Robert, seeing that he wasn't going to get another song, tired of her. He pulled her to him roughly and kissed her soundly on the cheek before turning back to his Hand. Jon Arryn looked at her in surprise, as if just now noticing that his closest neighbor's daughter was in the room.

Lenna turned back to the queen. Cersei smiled at her kindly.

"I can see that you're tired, my dove. Go to bed if you wish."

"Thank you, your grace," she replied, curtseying. She turned to Tyrion Lannister, giving him a nod and a brief look of annoyance. "My lord."

"A delight and a surprise, my lady," he said, bowing with a flourish. He looked up at her with a devilish smirk.

Sandor V

It had been days since the banquet, but it was as if the damn lutenist had been following him around, that fucking song repeating itself in his head over and over.

He had to force himself not to leave the banquet hall when she'd taken her place by the lutenist. He'd watched her all evening, enjoying the way her dark hair contrasted with the dark red of her dress. He'd never seen her wear such a color, and it became her in a way the cooler colors he'd long admired simply didn't. It made his blood heat, wondering what it would be like to peel it off of her.

His mood had soured when he noticed her interactions with the Lannister Imp. He knew they both went to the library at night. He'd seen her once on his way back to the barracks and had followed her, dismayed to see the Imp follow minutes later. It made him ill with jealousy to think of Tyrion Lannister, of all people, enjoying Helenna Manderly in the privacy of the darkened library. He admitted that he'd started refusing to talk to her in the mornings, ignoring her pleasantries, so enraged at the idea that the Imp might be taking advantage of her, might be touching her, that he could scarcely bear to look at her.

It comforted him to see them together, though. They didn't act like lovers, that was for sure. Teasing, sure, but no undercurrents of passion. The furtive looks they shot each other were more like two comrades making fun of their betters, and he it didn't take him long to realize that they _were_. It didn't make him less jealous, it did the opposite. Once, she'd reserved that kind of silent language to him, though he now refused it, and he was hurt that she'd replaced him.

Then the little Lannister had bid her sing. He didn't know if he could bear that, either. He cherished the mornings he eavesdropped on her hymns to the mother in the Sept, her clear voice rising, intended just for the gods. If he'd put more stock in the gods, he might have thought he was earning some kind of hellish penance for stealing what belonged to them and keeping it for himself.

She'd been bewitching and he'd been transfixed. He was glad he was leaning against the wall, that no one took any mind of him. If someone had tried to assassinate that king at that moment, they would have succeeded. Sandor Clegane would have been to enthralled to notice anything except the sound of her voice and the contrast of her rosy lips and pale skin.

The song the Imp commanded was a popular one, it was sensual in a way that made him intensely uncomfortable. It was far too intimate, the rising refrain breathless as she sang of touching and kissing and _dying_. He was no poet, but he understood what that meant, and it would wreak havoc on his sanity later.

More than that, it was like the song had been chosen specifically to mock _him_. _I sit, I sigh, I weep, I faint, I die in deadly pain...all the night my sleeps are full of dreams, my eyes are full of streams, my heart takes no delight...Out alas, my faith is ever true, yet she will never rue, nor yield me any grace…_

He shook his head forcefully to return to himself. It was near the end of his watch, and he was grateful. He wanted to go to training yards and destroy something, anything. At least he wasn't subjected to the girl today. It was one of her off days, the little princess now napping in her mother's private study while he looked on.

Cersei was silently working through the correspondence Pycelle had brought her. She was methodical as she broke the seals, wrote her replies, and sorted the letters into piles. One stack she would keep, the other he would destroy for her on his way out. It was part of the routine on these days. His replacements would arrive, and she would wordlessly hand him the pile of letters that were to be destroyed.

"Here, Clegane," the queen said, proffering the stack. His replacements were opening the door. The queen didn't look up, but he took the letters and went to the fireplace. As he was about to cast the lot into the flames, two words caught his eye.

 _Dearest Lenna…_

He didn't think twice. He palmed the paper and threw the rest of the parchment on the flames. He glanced back to see the queen studiously gazing at her work and the guards peering down at the children. He hadn't been noticed.

Once outside the queen's study, he pushed the paper in his hauberk. It rested against his chest like a lead weight. His thoughts of going to the training yards fled, and he wondered what to do, if he should read it.

He couldn't resist.

He ducked into a rarely used corridor and pulled it out again, opening the parchment and feeling a burst of guilt for reading something not intended for his eyes.

 _Dearest Lenna,_

 _I refuse to give up on writing to you. Even if you burn my letters unopened, I must at least try to reach out to you. Grandfather says you have quite forgotten us, but I simply cannot believe you would be so cruel. Something must have happened, there must be some reason we have not heard from you these many, many months._

 _The queen wrote to inform Grandfather that you'd been appointed as the princess's tutor. It made me proud to hear it, and I congratulate you on your success. I often wonder what your like in King's Landing must be like, all the fine people you have met, especially the little princess. I wonder if she knows how lucky she is to be in your care. I know I am more grateful now for the time we had than I was capable of being at the time. But I fear that your new station will keep you from us. Forever._

 _Oh, Lenna, please write just a few words to tell me you are well. I beg you, for my sake and Grandfather's. He will never admit it, but he suffers from missing you. Just a few words, if you have any love for us left._

 _Always your affectionate niece,_

 _Wynnafred Manderly_

Clegane's vision blurred to red. Without another thought he tore out of the corridor and bolted toward the library, the parchment once again tucked into his hauberk.

His mind was a mass of anger. It was clear that the girl's niece thought Helenna Manderly had stopped writing to them. He knew it to be false, he knew that she faithfully sent a letter to her father each week. He'd seen her hand it to a maid himself.

If her niece's letter had been found on Cersei's desk, and her letters had not been reaching White Harbor, there was only one explanation. The queen was intercepting her letters on both ends. He wondered, with a hot blast of shame, if he'd inadvertently burned any of them himself.

He opened the library doors and strode to the back of the stacks. He knew where she would be.

She was seated at her table, hunched over her parchment. He hadn't bothered to silence his steps, but the girl had obviously taken no note of them. She was furiously scribbling, a little pair of spectacles resting on her nose.

"My lady," he said. He was breathing hard, fighting to control his anger.

"Clegane," she said, her mouth an o of astonishment. A wide smile crossed her face, and under other circumstances he would have enjoyed it. "What on earth-"

"I thought you should have this," he replied, shoving his hand beneath the hauberk and producing the letter.

Her brow furrowed and she reached for it, her fingers brushing his as she took it. She turned it, the little notch between her eyebrows deepening as she opened it and began to read. He saw her hands start to tremble, one coming up to press against her mouth as she slumped, half-sitting, half-leaning against the table. Tears began to roll down her cheeks in two fat rivers, her eyes darting back and forth across the page again and again. He counted the number of times she read it. Seven.

She withdrew a handkerchief from her pocket. It was a startling aqua, embroidered with white. A Merman with a trident. Her sigil. She dried her tears, crumpling the fabric in her hand until her knuckles were as white as the thread.

"Where did you get it?" she asked quietly, lifting watery eyes to search his face.

"The queen. She gave it to me to burn."

"My mail-"

"Intercepted."

"Why? What on earth could she possibly want with my mail?"

"I...I don't know, my lady."

"And the letters I give my maid, they must be handed over to her as well."

"Yes."

"I have to get a letter to Wynna, to let her know-"

"I'll send it."

The offer came unbidden to his lips. As soon as he said it, he knew he would carry it all the way to White Harbor himself if she asked him to do it.

"Thank you, ser," she said quietly.

He colored and looked at his feet. "I'm no ser."

"Maybe not in title. Clegane, I cannot thank you enough. I have despaired…" Her voice cracked with the return of tears.

He nodded, looking back at her. She smiled, a thin, watery thing that made him ache through and through.

"I'll carry it today, if you want," he said. She nodded quickly, pulling out a piece of parchment and sitting back down at the table.

"Tonight? Could you come to my room and I'll give it to you then? I need time to think."

"Of course," he said lowly, turning to leave.

"Walk with me? Please? I do not wish to be alone."

He groaned internally, but did as she bid. They didn't speak, but she seemed comfortable with him, the silence between them easy. He left her at her door, almost breathless when she lifted her eyes, a brighter green from her tears, to his and smiled at him. He wanted to bend forward and wipe the moisture away from her cheeks with his fingers so badly.

"I'll come back. Midnight."

"Yes," she agreed, and she went into her room and shut the door.

He was distracted the rest of the afternoon. He didn't go to the sparring yard as he usually did, instead he lay on his bunk and tangled with his thoughts. Time crept at a snail's pace as he thought over the afternoon's events, torn between rage at the queen and a queer tenderness for the girl that only grew the more he tried to ignore it.

He watched her, wan and pale through dinner, and at the appointed hour he appeared at her door. She must have been listening for him. The door swung open as he raised his fist to knock lightly. She stood before him in her dressing gown, her hair loose and cascading in a dark mass of curls around her shoulders. He had to suck in his breath. She held out the letter and he took it absently, transfixed by the sight of her.

To his astonishment, she did something then that he knew he'd remember the rest of his life. She seized his hand, the one holding the letter, and she bent over it. Her hair fell against his skin, soft and silky. He wanted to lift his other hand to touch it. Then, unbelievably, he felt her warm breath against his skin as she pressed her lips to fingers, pleasure and pain both lancing through him like being pierced with arrows.

It was done in an instant, a sweet and innocent gesture of thanks, and then she smiled gently, closing the door.

He retreated quickly, knowing it was too risky to stay, had been too risky to even speak. He let his feet carry him to the wharf, but his mind was engaged with the sight of her dark head bent over his hand, her hair a warm curtain, her breath warmer still on his fingers, and her lips fire against his skin.


	9. Chapter 9

Lenna VII

His unexpected appearance in the library had created the oddest sensation in her belly. Eating a live fish was the closest thing she could liken it to, an unsettling feeling that left her feeling flushed. It didn't help that she'd been thinking about him at the very moment he appeared. Ever since he'd put that distance between them he had become a frequent fixture of her thoughts. She felt the absence of their peculiar friendship keenly, almost dreading the mornings with Myrcella because she knew, more likely than not, that he would stand at attention blank faced and then walk out without a word for her. It wasn't as if they talked much to begin with, but he always answered her 'good morning' and responded to her questions, though usually in monosyllables. Now, he flat out ignored her. Not even a grunt or a glance, like she wasn't even there.

It hurt her more than she wanted to admit, and she wondered what she had done to deserve it. She wanted to ask him, to make amends. She'd taken to having imaginary conversations with him, far more in depth than any they'd ever shared. It made her ashamed, but she was so lonely that the thought of losing her only steadfast ally grieved her.

He was a puzzle, a complicated map without a key. There were moments when he would look at her so openly that she felt she could read his thoughts, but those moments were now few and far between. Tyrion, the only other person she had in King's Landing she could possibly describe as a friend, had returned to Casterly Rock with no real idea of when he might return. Lenna was left feeling more alone than she ever had.

Then, unpredictable as always, he had appeared before her table as if she had conjured him with her thoughts. She had been sitting with quill in hand, working on the extremely long translation Tyrion had assigned her, a bawdy Myrish poem she was sure he'd meant to make her smile. It wasn't working. Tyrion had been somber the night he'd bid her farewell, holding her hand in both of his with his mismatched eyes full of regret. She'd wondered for a twinkling if he felt anything for her, but the brotherly squeeze of her hand left her in no doubt that he didn't. She was relieved. She was sure she wanted him as a friend, but nothing more.

She was trying to studiously distract herself from thinking about any of her troubles, relying on the familiar comfort of the stacks. The quiet helped her channel all of her focus onto the poem, the only noise the clutter in her own head. Her thoughts, however, were like cats or birds, darting hither and yon, seemingly beyond her control.

For such a large man, Clegane could move silently, especially considering he was wearing a full kit of armor. So many of the guards clanked about like wheelhouses when they walked, but not the Hound. There was an unexpected litheness in the way he moved, much like the great dogs he was named after, a circular and graceful loping that allowed him to creep up undetected despite his massiveness.

"My lady."

Her head had shot up in alarm, a strange bolt of pleasure running through her in seeing his face. She had just been thinking about him, about his strange behavior at the banquet the night she sang, of his refusal to even look at her after. She couldn't imagine why he was there now, but she was glad.

"Clegane," she'd said, smiling for the first time that day, and then he'd produced a piece of paper that proceeded to skew her world even more than it already was.

She had been astounded to recognize her niece's hand. She would have recognized it anywhere, much more graceful than her own. The sight sent a wave of icy shock through her, causing her heart to speed faster beneath her ribs, her hands to go cold and begin to tremble. The first words she'd had from Wynna in two years, brought to her by the most unlikely source.

She read the letter quickly at first, and it broke her heart a little more each time she reread it. She couldn't believe it. To think that her family, her beloved family, thought that she had forgotten them, had spurned them- it was unimaginable, a wave of fresh grief overcoming her. She had grown adept at sectioning off her heart, locking away the agony of her isolation, finding ways to stay cheerful, occupied. She felt like a different person who had two sets of memories; the first of her happy past, the other of her painful present. But this letter broke through the wall between her present and her past with excruciating ease, allowing for an unprecedented tumult of feeling.

"Where did you get it?" It was the first thing she could think to ask, her voice shaking, hot tears gathering in her eyes. She looked at him desperately, her vision seeming to funnel until just his familiar form was visible.

"The queen. She gave it to me to burn."

She furrowed her brow, hurt and angry. She could hear the guilt in his voice, purple like a bruise, and the words hit her like blows. The answer raised more questions than it answered. Terrible, disturbing questions. Why would Cersei Lannister keep her mail from her? Why would she separate her from her family in such a way? Part of her bedrock had crumbled at his admission, falling away from beneath her feet like a collapsing seacliff. Her trust in the queen, trust she had freely and unthinkingly given, evaporated. She wondered what on earth she was supposed to do with the knowledge.

And Clegane had simply stood there. She had been able to see his helplessness in his hands, the palms open to her in some unconscious supplication even as his melancholy eyes spoke of guilt and shame.

She knew she started babbling, heart and mind in such turmoil that she didn't even know what she was saying. He had stayed steady, holding her eyes with his, and she clung to his gaze like a shipwrecked sailor might have clung to a mast.

 _Gray eyes_.

"I'll send it."

His eyes were beautiful, and when he said those words, he was, too. Noble, steadfast, everything a knight should be, like the ones in her books. The shutters fell away from his face, and Lenna saw him again, the glimmer of what she had always suspected, the possibility that there was more to his character than scowls and curses. He was rough, and harsh, but he'd always been unpredictably kind, to both her and the children, catching her unawares with his consideration. But this offer...

This offer went far beyond kindness. He was incurring risk as well. Great risk, and Lenna was briefly overwhelmed by his willingness to chance being discovered. If the queen was intercepting her mail, and not allowing her letters out of King's Landing, being found carrying a message for her would have terrible repercussions for both of them.

 _Seven, his head could end on a spike._

But she had to try. Surely, he wouldn't offer if he thought it so dangerous. Still, it frightened her. She asked him to walk with her back to her room. No one would think twice of seeing them together. They often were. She felt better with his bulk beside her, knowing she didn't have to talk. She could just be. She felt safe when she was with him.

He'd left her at her door, promising to return at midnight. _Like a lovers' assignation_ , she thought hysterically. The thought of him as anyone's lover, let alone hers, made her lip turn up wryly as soon as the door was closed. She had to shake herself out of the thought.

It took above an hour to determine what to say to Wynna, deathly afraid of her words constituting treason if they happened to be intercepted along the way.

 _My dearest Wynna,_

 _Dear you are and ever shall be. I have not forgotten my family, and it pains me greatly to know you could think it. My duty has prevented my letters. Do not despair if you do not hear from me again for a very long time. Just know that I cannot send word._

 _I am well. I am as content as I can be without you, my brothers, and Father. I have found unexpected favor with the queen. I am not without friends. One has ensured that this letter will reach you when I have been unable to send others._

 _I keep you all in my prayers and miss you beyond words. Please believe me. Please convince Father- I cannot bear that he believes me faithless. Until we are able to meet again, know that you are always in my thoughts._

 _Always yours,_

 _Lenna_

She'd had to recopy it three times, the ink becoming so blurred by her tears that the first were illegible. She'd burned the drafts immediately.

Long before midnight, she took her place by the door. She heard his step as soon as he arrived, opening the door just as he raised one tremendous hand to knock. He was cloaked, not that anyone who knew him could mistake him, dressed in a common tunic and trousers. She had never seen him out of his armor, and if possible he seemed even larger. She had always assumed his armor made him appear bulkier, but it was evident that it wasn't so. The height and breadth of him was staggering, to think all of it was flesh and bone. Even in the dim light she could see a tuft of dark hair on his chest, peeking above his neckline. It made her stomach fizz hotly to see him this way, simply a man and not a soldier.

They didn't speak, but he had taken the letter. She surprised both of them by reaching out and seizing his hands, pressing her lips to his warm skin before she even realized what she was doing.

The action rocked her. It did him as well, if his face was any indication. He looked at her as if she had hit him with a warhammer. His lips parted, and noted absently that his mouth was beautiful, gracefully curved with a full lower lip. She stared at it a moment longer than she meant too, and she was sure neither of them were breathing. Worried that she may have angered him, seizing him in such a familiar way, she gingerly raised her eyes to his. They were suffused with a fierce expression that made her quake. Without a word, he'd tightened his jaw and turned from her, leaving her stunned and breathless behind her door to mull over the memory of his hand in hers, his mouth, and the inscrutable expression in his gaze.

She had slept ill, but rose the next day with a clearer head, having shaken off the strange fancies of the night before. It was the Seventh, and she resolved to find him and thank him properly for what he had done. He deserved that much at least for putting himself in danger on her account. She thought she'd be able to catch him as they left the great Sept of Baelor with the royal family. Neither of them were expected on duty for the Seventh, and she hoped she'd be able to cross his path.

She wasn't disappointed. He was hard to miss. When the courtiers began exiting through the many doors, streaming out into the streets as they headed back to the Keep, Lenna skirted around the crowd until she was able to see him heading her direction. She darted into an alcove, and then it occurred to her how idiotic her plan had been.

She had been so hell-bent on thanking him that it didn't cross her mind that they were in full view of hundreds of people. How was she supposed to get his attention without anyone noticing, let alone talk to him? It would be highly irregular for her to be seen waiting for him, seeking him out. There was no reason why a lady of her position would need to talk to a man in his, let alone _him_ in particular. The Hound's reputation, and her own, for that matter, made it a daft idea from its inception.

A heavy pair of boots stopped just outside of the nook she was hiding in. She knew it was him, didn't need to see the long fall of his shadow to confirm it. Now, instead of wanting to talk to him, all she wanted to do was go.

It took a full fifteen minutes for everyone to make their way out of the building. He never budged. Suddenly, he was there with her.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing, girl?" he hissed.

She drew back, put off by his anger even though she expected it. The alcove was small, and it seemed to her that he filled up all of it. She felt tiny in the face of his ire, suddenly aware of just how enormous he was. It was one thing to stand at a distance from that much strength, another to be so close she could feel his warmth, the light from the Sept blotted out by the broad expanse of his shoulders.

"I wanted to talk to you." It sounded weak and tiny in her ears, and yet another wave of foolishness washed over her. She regretted this half-cocked idea immensely, wishing she had never said anything at all. Wishing she had done as so many others would have done, taken his generosity and never said a word about it. She should have just fled.

"About what?" he demanded. "What is so important that you felt the need to risk both our necks? Do you really think no one would want to know what a pretty lady-in-waiting would want with the Hound? That it wouldn't make them talk?"

"I..I hadn't thought that." It had only occurred to her once she'd ducked into that alcove that if they were seen together like this their names might be linked in that way, that people would think there was something between them. Oddly, the thought didn't bother her as much as she expected, except for the danger it could put them both in. Highborn ladies were not supposed to have lovers, especially not one like the queen's Hound. _He's not even your lover, you twit._

"Obviously you fucking didn't." He was clenching his jaw, the words hissing against his teeth.

He was angry. It was the first time she'd seen him truly heated, and never before had his irritation been directed at her. It was fearsome to see his brow contracted together until the rippling of the scar was indistinguishable from the contortion of his face, to hear him splutter and spit, anger thickening his tongue.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, a little afraid. " I'm sorry. I didn't think. It was thoughtless."

"Aye," he ground out."What do you want?" He emphasized each word as he said it, like boulders dropped into deep water.

"I wanted to thank you," she murmured, feeling exceedingly silly. _You wanted to see him,_ she thought.

"You couldn't have done that somewhere every fucking courtier in King's Landing wasn't watching?" There as the slightest hint of humor in the question, but Lenna was far too embarrassed to hear it.

She closed her eyes tightly, a flush of scarlet chagrin riding up her neck. He growled in frustration. It was an oddly animalistic sound, and it made her cheeks flame hotter.

"You're welcome." His tone had softened, deep and rumbling, the harsh edge filed off but still raspy. The words sounded like they were difficult for him to say, like he'd had to make an effort to get them to come out.

She hoped it was a peace offering. She made herself open her eyes to look at him again, relieved to find his features more relaxed, but still scowling darkly.

"Do you think it will be intercepted? I tried-"

"Not for what I paid for it."

She colored again.

"I didn't realize- how much do I owe you?" She was ashamed of the very idea that he had spent his own money to send her letter. It was thoughtless of her to not ask, to not have offered compensation already. She had never thought very much about money, even less so in the capital, but she didn't imagine a man like him earned much beyond his keep. It was the way of many second sons from minor houses. He was in service to the Crown, and they provided for him physically through room and board, perhaps some small stipend. In return, he would fight and die and bleed for them. It shamed her that she hadn't thought to give him money to bribe a ship's captain or even a crewman.

"I don't want your fucking coin, girl. I offered to do it, and I did it."

"I insist," she replied. "It would be no bother, just tell me how much and I'll get it to you."

"No." It was as much a growl as a word.

She'd never seen his streak of pride before, but here it was in full display. He stood at his full height with his shoulders rolled back, his chin set defiantly as he looked down the crooked run of his nose. He was gritting his teeth together, so hard she thought she could hear them squeak. In a flash, she realized that she had insulted him on top of everything else. Of course he wouldn't take her coin, and her insistence would only further embarrass him, further throw into contrast their respective statuses, not in the Keep, but in the world.

 _You certainly are making a mess of things_.

"Then I must thank you again." She made her voice soft and cajoling, willing him to understand that it was gratitude that prompted her to seek him out. "I'm in your debt."

He made a low sound deep in his chest. "I hope you didn't write anything in that fucking letter as stupid as the bullshit you keep spouting."

"Me too." The vulgarity didn't faze her. It was a fear that dogged her, the idea that she had said too much. Too little and Wynna, clever as she was, wouldn't understand. She'd tried to write in such a way that strange eyes would think it was just an overdue letter, that she was merely busy. It had been a challenge to find the way to tell them that she was being prevented from corresponding, to allay their fears without telling them her mail was censored outright, to convince them to let her be.

She heard him take a deep breath, like he was building up his patience. His body bent toward her slightly, the pride put away.

"What did you tell them?" His face had relaxed, question and concern in his eyes, tolerance in his voice.

"That my duty prevented me from writing." She felt a wave of relief in telling him. She had spent so long trying to find the words, and she had wished she had thought to consult him before she sent it. There had been no time, no way to ask for his help.

He turned it over in his head. "Good enough. What else."

"Not to expect to hear anything from me soon. That I hadn't gotten their letters."

"Not so good," he said, shaking his head. "Just the last part. They'll wonder why."

"They'll understand me." She was confident that Wynna would read between the lines, as it were, and understand that Lenna couldn't tell her the whole truth. At the very least, she'd show her father, and Wyman Manderly would understand in a trice.

"What else, then?" His tone had become even, his anger fled. Lenna was glad of it. She didn't like thinking that he was angry at her as well as ignoring her.

"That I am well. Content. That I have friends."

He snorted and cocked his eyebrow. "Comfort them with lies. If it puts them off the scent-"

"They're not lies," she replied insistently. "I am well. I am as content as I may be. I have friends."

"Who?" he demanded with a curl of his lip.

"Lord Tyrion." He snorted and looked to the ceiling, almost rolling his eyes. "And you."

Her voice was just the barest hint of a whisper, and it died away on the last syllable. He froze, as if they were some magic words that enthralled him. There was a long stretch of silence as he seemed to gather himself. When at last he spoke, he wouldn't look at her.

"Aye." It was a simple syllable, begrudgingly said, but rich with meaning. It brought Lenna more hope than she dared say.

"That's what I've been trying to say, however clumsily," she said, all in a rush. "I am grateful. Grateful to call you friend. You have helped me more than I deserve, Clegane."

"Sandor." It was soft, so soft she almost didn't hear it.

"What?" Lenna blinked at him. He always managed to surprise her. He was not predictable from one moment to the next. One minute he was raging at her, the next counseling her, and then, most unexpectedly, giving her his name in the most unaffected tone she'd ever heard. She wondered if he'd meant to say it, or if it had slipped out unbidden. She wondered if he'd retract his permission to use it.

"You heard me, girl."

 _Oh. Oh, well then._

"Then you must-" She desperately wanted to hear him say her name. Tyrion used it liberally, but he was gone. To have someone know her in that way would be a comfort.

"Fuck no. I don't want to end with my head on a spike."

"Sandor, I wish you would." She knew what she was doing, pitching her voice like that to coax him into doing what she wished. He looked at her askance, his lips a firm line.

"Don't look for me like this again, do you understand? You are far too close to the queen to be this foolish. She must never think, even for a second, that you aren't exactly what she wants you to be, and one of those things is discreet."

"I understand," she said quietly.

"I don't think you do," he replied urgently. "I don't think you have any idea what you're doing."

"You're right." She laughed, a dry, muffled sound, even though she really wanted to cry. "But that's why I need you. You understand it better than I do."

"I'm not good at it," he said, shaking his head.

"You're better at it than I am, but I'm learning."

This seemed to bother him, though she didn't understand why. It seemed for a moment that instead of annoyed or angry, Sandor Clegane was sad. Not bitter, not melancholy, but sad.

"You should go," he said softly. "Opposite door. I'll wait ten minutes. Gods, this is fucking stupid." He raked an enormous hand through his hair, annoyance creeping back into his face and voice.

She smiled at his frustration. She preferred him frothing at the mouth.

"Sandor," she said, enjoying the feel of it in her mouth. "Thank you. Again"

He grunted, but she swore she saw him smirk.


	10. Chapter 10

295 AC

Sandor VII

How she could possibly be running late he couldn't fathom, but when he arrived at the library with the little princess, she was nowhere to be found. In a year of lessons, she had never been late. He shifted nervously from foot to foot, eventually nudging Myrcella toward the table where she took her lessons. The child grabbed her slate and a handful of colorful chalk and set to scribbling while he waited, arms crossed across his chest and getting more annoyed by the moment.

He walked to the back of the library, careful to keep the child in his sight. Lenna wasn't at her favored a table to the back of the stacks where there was a thick shaft of sunlight during most of the day. She didn't return her books to the shelves each day, instead leaving them in piles until she was done with them. Literature, philosophy, long dusty histories. He'd flipped through them, looking with distaste at the long and dry passages, many in tongues he didn't know and could barely identify. Dornish, Braavosi, Meerish. Old Valyrian. He found himself keeping track of what she was working on, not just because he knew the queen would ask, but because he wanted to know everything about her that he could.

He tried to remain aloof during the lessons, tried to ignore the way he felt where she was concerned. It wasn't just that he found her attractive, he also found her interesting, more and more as the years passed. Against his will, he enjoyed standing there, listening and watching her, the way her expressive features would transform as she told a story for Myrcella. Her brows were agile, her mouth quick to smile, and while she had the reputation for being reserved he didn't know how she acquired it. She never fucking shut up. Not that he truly minded. She talked enough for the three of them.

He learned a fair bit himself, found himself intrigued as much by the material as by the teller. And she, seven keep her, she always tried to draw him in, but he had resisted again and again, often simply turning heel and leaving so he wouldn't get entangled. More than he already was.

If he were to take an inventory of his thoughts where she was concerned, a large portion of them would be easily categorized as lust. He was physically drawn to her, and he enjoyed looking at her odd eyes and long hair, remembering the soft whisper of it against his hand, thinking about what it might feel like brushing against his chest, his thighs. He wanted to dig his fingers into fleshy hips, trace her cheek with the back of his finger, know what that plump mouth would feel like against his own instead of just the back of his hand. He thought it likely he could still pinpoint the exact spot on his hand she had kissed it months ago. No, his discomfort went beyond being physically attracted to her. He knew what to do with that, and it was nothing that a good wank in his bunk at night and an afternoon of avoiding her eye in embarrassed memory couldn't fix.

What he couldn't easily handle, though, was the odd aching desire to talk to her. It wasn't enough to be bodily near, though he craved being in the same room with her, his eyes seeking her out at the evening meal just so he could rest them on her at his leisure. No, he wanted to engage her, to look down into her upturned face as she looked back at him without any fear or difficulty, as if his face was as whole as any other man's. And when she spoke to him she never called him dog, or cur, none of the names he despised. She'd called him ser just the once, and instead of it making him angry, something in him had puffed up with pleasure. She talked to him as she would have talked to the man he might have been if his fucking brother hadn't shoved his head into a brazier. And he craved it, despising himself for it all the while.

And he'd been stupid enough to give her his name. That day in the Sept, when had foolishly sought him out, he'd gotten carried away and given her his name. She seldom had occasion to use it, but she did often enough when they were walking to and from the children's quarters. It was a whisper on her tongue, pitched low so others wouldn't hear, and though he knew she meant it as a mark of friendship, it made his gut stir each and every time.

For at the same time that he wanted her friendship, it also made him suffer. He wanted to despise her for making him feel a fool, but he couldn't. The longer he had to be around her, the more he had to control himself. Forcing his thoughts away from stupid musings where she was concerned had become a full-time endeavor.

The princess's lessons had been going for over a year. Three days a week he found himself leaning up against some bookcase or another when he could have been sparring and training, listening to a four year old learn her letters. It should have been maddening.

And it was, in the most pleasurable and painful way. He was both given and denied what he craved. He constantly had to reroute his thoughts, making the decision to focus on doing his duty and stay out of his own head. Especially since his daydreams had taken a much more disturbing path. The imaginings of her in his bed were reserved to his bunk, her name, Lenna, slipping from his throat even as his cheeks burned in shame. But the morning musings were much more terrifying: thoughts of her laughing, walking with him. _Being_ with him. Talking to him about the fascinating things she knew, that she shared with the princess, but which he lapped up besides, just like the dog he was.

It had been intriguing to watch her as she grew into her role. She hadn't the slightest clue where to start, that much was clear. At first, Helenna had tried to mimic the Septas, with their stern ways and dry instruction, but before he knew it, she had drawn the little princess down onto the carpet, and they sat there for most of the morning in a heavy shaft of sunlight. The little girl would crawl up into her lap as Helenna Manderly talked and talked, about anything and everything. They read, they built, they drew. The lady managed to insert lessons on history, science, even philosophy and math. He would watch from his post as they gradually surrounded themselves with books and toys and painted parchments, two birds in a nest of learning.

He was thinking of them like that, with a small smile playing on the unscarred side of his mouth, when he finally heard the doors to the library spring open. He looked up as she flew in through the doors, her skirts all in a whirl. Her eyes were bright and her face was pale, looking oddly strained.

"I do beg your pardons," she said, the brightness of her smile not reaching her eyes, addressing Myrcella as much as she did him. "I received a raven."

"All well?" he asked gruffly, knitting his brow. She didn't get ravens, or mail, and they both knew it.

"Aye," she replied softly, glancing up at him through her lashes. "It is my nameday and my father sent his greetings."

He searched for a reply but couldn't come up with one. Her nameday. It should be a cause for joy, and hers only brought sorrow.

"Oh, Lenna," Myrcella cooed. "Did he send you a present?"

"The very best," she replied, masking slight hysteria with a merry laugh. It was hollow to his ears. "He sent his love."

Clegane felt a shaft of pity rush through him. The lone raven that was allowed to reach the Lady of White Harbor, all the others intercepted or turned away. It made him angry and melancholy in the same moment. He suppressed it, trying to busy himself with watching and listening to her as she began the little grace's lessons. It wasn't long before they were spread out on the floor in the sunbeams with their materials strewn around them. Myrcella was feigning boredom and frustration, and Lenna was cajoling her to return to the lesson at hand. A little of her former brightness had returned.

"All of our history is but a tale," Lenna told the little girl, flipping reverently through the pages of a heavy tome, allowing the princess to trace her stubby finger over an illumination of Rhaenys Targaryen and her mount.

"But isn't it in all those dusty books?" Myrcella lisped, wrinkling her little nose in disgust.

"Of course, but that's just where it sleeps. You have to open the covers and wake it up! It lives only so long as we remember it, as long as we hear it. Would you have guessed a picture like this was inside this book?" The princess shook her golden curls, the sunlight bouncing off them brightly. The tutor laughed. "No? That proves my point, silly. You have to open them to find out."

He couldn't contain the humph that escaped from him. _Sometimes,_ he thought _, she's full of horseshit, even if it is her nameday_.

He stood with his head thrown back against the bookshelf, propping one foot against it. He insisted on standing throughout the morning, despite daily invitations to take his ease. Not only would he not sit, he wouldn't move. Any other guard would have at least paced if forced to listen to a five year old's lessons several times a week. But he remained almost completely still, shifting occasionally to redistribute his weight and nothing more. _If I don't move_ , he thought, _she won't try to talk to me_.

But he wanted her to talk to him. He wanted her to try and draw him out, tease him as she was wont to do. He didn't think she was aware of how much he watched her, in fact he hoped she wasn't. If she was, she probably would have stopped trying to get him to speak by now. He was glad she hadn't. He would be sorely disappointed if she gave up on him.

"Do you have something to add, Clegane?" He tried to ignore her, like usual. It irked him now when she used his surname, though he knew she wasn't so stupid to say his given name in the princess' hearing. He chose to ignore her now, filled with the perverse desire to annoy her. It usually worked. Sometimes he might look at her, but he wouldn't utter a sound, even to a direct question like this one. It seemed to have become a bit of a joke between she and Myrcella. They both seemed to take delight in needling him as well, grinning at each other without caring if he saw them. As a result, her voice now had the edge of a dare.

"No." _Damn_. He hadn't meant to answer her. He was usually more guarded, but her eyes were so sad that he was momentarily distracted, even as she tried to bait him.

"Really, because it sounds like you do," Lenna pressed, winking at her charge though her face was still rather drawn. Myrcella giggled. "Do you like history, perhaps?"

"No." his lips quirked. _I like this_ , he thought. _I like making you look at me, irritating you._

"Do you like tales?" Her lips had pursed into a childish simper.

"Not particularly," he said, trying to effect an air of complete boredom. And failing.

"Everyone likes stories, Sandor," lisped Myrcella, running to him and wrapping her arms around around his calf. She barely came to his knee. He looked down at the little girl from his prodigious height, his face opening with something close to affection as his version of a smile tugged at the unmarked side of his mouth. Despite himself he was passing fond of the moppet with her golden curls and sweet little voice. She reminded him of the sister he had once had, all innocence and wide eyes. He'd known the princess since she was an infant, he'd held her mewling little body in one hand, her little face puckered up and red. She'd eventually learned who he was, and sometimes she'd coo when he'd pick her up to deliver her where he was bid. Each little sound buried itself somewhere tender that he'd forgotten he had.

"I guess I do like some stories, little grace," he said. Myrcella plopped on his boots, leaning against his greaves. His enormous hand ghosted over the blond curls, and he could feel her warmth.

"What's your favorite one?" she asked, looking up at him with enormous crystalline eyes. She looked just like her mother and uncle with their golden hair and eyes like sea glass. A Lannister princess, through and through, he thought ruefully. He had heard the rumors since before she was born, knew what people whispered about she and the princes. He suspected that the rumors were correct, that this child was not Robert Baratheon's at all. That none of them were, except for the first little one who had died almost as soon as he was born. But Clegane had grown up in the shadow of Casterly Rock, his family loyal her mother's house. And she was but a child. She had as much control over who birthed her as he had.

"I guess the Lord of Castamere. I like it when people get what's coming to them. Doesn't happen that way in real life," he said quietly, thinking of all three of them. The little princess with her mother like ice, his own lot and his brother who had ruined him. And her tutor, the pretty girl seated on the floor, who was alone a thousand miles anyone who actually might care for her. They were three cut from the same sad cloth, he thought.

"I don't know that story," Myrcella said, rapping her baby hand against his enormous toe.

Lenna shot Clegane a look, but he met her eye with challenge. He relished her disapproval, enjoying the way her cheeks pinked, anything but the sadness that had been there before. He stood there with his fingertips on Myrcella's little head, but his eyes were fixed on Helenna Manderly. There was a flash of anger across her face and he felt vindicated. Anger was better than melancholy.

"It isn't a very nice story, Myrcella," she said at last, settling down on her haunches to get to the princess's level.

"Is it sad?" the little princess asked, furrowing her brow.

"Very," Lenna replied, still crouching in the shaft of sunlight with her arms folded across her knees.

"Really depends on who you ask," Clegane offered, addressing the princess directly. For as taciturn as he was, when he did talk of his own volition it was often directly to the children. He was more comfortable speaking to them than he was with the adults that surrounded him, he never felt off-kilter when them. "Your family thinks it ends happily enough, little grace."

"Clegane," Lenna said, warning in her tone. Though he kept his eyes on hers, he crouched down the Myrcella's level and began to hum, a deep rumble that he knew was not unpleasant to hear. He felt a soft frisson in his gut when the tutor's pretty mouth opened into an o of surprise.

"Sing, Sandor!" the princess clapped, breaking the spell, then grabbed one of his giant hands in both of her tiny ones. Her entire hand barely managed to wrap around his thumb.

"I don't sing, little grace," he said, cocking an eyebrow at Helenna. She still looked sad, and he didn't like it. He seized on the nugget of an idea. "But Lenna does." They were merely feet apart and he could see the amber flecks in her odd eyes, lit up by the shaft of sunlight to starkly contrast with the ring of dark green. A flush spread across her cheeks, and he was sure that they were both intently aware that he'd just said her name aloud. He'd never said it outside the confines of his room before, certainly never in anyone else's hearing. He cleared his suddenly thick throat. "Aren't you going to give the little grace a song? She so wants to hear the story."

Myrcella looked to her with such expectation that he knew she couldn't deny her. The tutor threw an exasperated look Sandor's way and he smirked back at her. He enjoyed watching her react to this, a darker flush of pink sweeping across the bridge of her nose, chasing away the strain from her earlier sorrow.

"Come here, darling girl," she said, extending an arm to the little princess as she cast her eyes down. She was flustered. It gratified him to no end. He felt almost gleeful until his breath caught in his throat. Myrcella had crawled into her lap, looking up at her. She put her little baby hand in Helenna's hair. It was hanging in a loose, thick tail over one shoulder, which the little girl buried her hands in and twisted. His hands itched to do the same, wondering what it felt like, if it was warm and silky or if would be coarse, clinging to his fingers. He had many thoughts about Helenna Manderly's hair, none of them particularly chaste.

But that wasn't what caused his breath the hitch. It was the way they were snuggled together, all affection and care, Lenna's arms wrapped around the little girl as if she were her own and not a princess it was her duty to teach. It was startlingly intimate to see her like that.

"Sing, Lenna." Myrcella had a knack for breaking spells.

Lenna looked at Sandor again, sighing, though this time she wore a soft smile. He had stood up and schooled his face back to impassivity, but he cocked his good eyebrow at her.

Lenna met his eye daringly and arched her own brow back at him. It sent a bolt of pleasure through him to see the return of her spirit. If he didn't know better, he might think she was flirting with him. Taking a breath she began the old ballad, looking down on the princess settled in her lap. The story spun of its own accord, looping seamlessly with the sad strains of the melody. By the last refrain, Sandor had leaned back against the wall again, this time he closed his eyes as he listened.

 _And who are you, the proud lord said,_

 _That I should bend so low?_

 _Only a cat of a different coat,_

 _That's all the truth I know._

 _In a coat of gold or a coat of red,_

 _A lion still has claws,_

 _And mine are long and sharp, my Lord,_

 _As long and sharp as yours._

 _And so he spoke, and so he spoke,_

 _That lord of Castamere,_

 _But now the rains weep o'er his hall,_

 _With no one there to hear._

 _Yes, now the rains weep o'er his hall_

 _Without a soul to hear._

There was a long beat of silence after she finished. He only faintly rued making her do it, goading her to sing a song she clearly hated. It was her nameday, after all, and he'd done it selfishly.

He didn't know she was watching him until he opened his eyes at the dying of the last note. He felt a rush of chill surge through him when he found himself under her scrutiny. The coolness turned to heat and went straight to his groin, much to his consternation. She looked back at him with her unfathomable eyes, her head slightly tilted as she looked at him, as if there were something curious about his face that she had noticed for the first time. It made him feel self-conscious and embarrassed.

He briefly feared he might have made her sorrow worse, the depth of sadness in her voice had resonated with something in him he hadn't acknowledged in a long time. He was stunned, staring back at her in the near-darkness of the shadows. The silence stretched between them like spider-silk, taut and tremulous with unspoken feeling. With some effort he gave his version of a smile, and felt a little of the burden of sorrow lift when she returned it fully, light in her eyes again.

"You're right," interrupted the little princess, completely unaware of what was passing between the two grown-ups she loved. "Lenna, it isn't a very happy story. I don't understand it, but your voice makes me so sad." With that, the little prince buried her golden head in her tutor's shoulder.

"It's just a song, dear girl," Lenna said, gathering the little princess to her and planting a kiss on the golden curls. She looked up at Clegane over the crown of the little girl's head, her lips still pressed to her hair. Her eyes were much brighter, but this time not with tears but with contentment, more herself. He shrugged, the remnant of a smile still tugging at the corners of his mouth, feeling as though the air in the room had become too thick to breathe.

After they were both relieved of duty, Clegane found himself wandering toward the market instead of the training yards. He didn't know what he was doing until he was standing in front of a stall hung with silk ribbons in more colors than he thought possible.

"See something you like?" An old woman sat on a stool, her hands folded in her lap.

"That one," he said gruffly, pointing to a long stretch of green ribbon that shone with tawny light as it fluttered.

"Which?"

"The green one, dark with the bit of gold."

"Ah," the old woman said and groped in the right direction. With astonishment, Sandor realized that she was blind. Her eyes were clouded over with white. "This one?"

She held up a blue one.

"Two to your left," he replied quietly, digging out his coin.

"For a lady, then?"

"Not fucking for me," he bit back, regretting his harshness immediately. The old woman cackled.

"One that bites," she laughed, pulling the correct ribbon off her display and holding it out in his direction.

"How much?" he asked, chastened.

"Keep your money, young man. Give it to your lady with my compliments." The old woman waggled her gray eyebrows in his direction. He dug into his pouch and retrieved a stag anyway. Far more than the ribbon was worth.

After procuring a length of rough twine from the kitchens, he wrapped the damn thing in a piece of parchment and scribbled a hasty note on the inside. _For your nameday, Lenna_. The brashness of using her name again turned his stomach. He felt like the biggest fool in Westeros when he laid it on her table, almost pocketing it and abandoning the whole idea in an odd panic. But the memory of her sad eyes came to him and he left it, throwing it down and walking as quickly away as he possibly could.

That night at dinner she sat with Myrcella as usual, and he could see, plain as day, his ribbon woven into her braid, running through the strands and binding the ends. She caught his eye and beamed, reaching a hand up to touch the fabric in acknowledgement. He slumped against the wall, making his hair fall across his face so she wouldn't see him flush, his throat working against the discomfort and the satisfaction that suddenly robbed him of breath.


	11. Chapter 11

296 AC

Lenna VIII

"Well, if it isn't the Lady of White Harbor."

Lenna jumped, looking up quickly. Tywin Lannister stood with his hands behind his back, looking down his long nose like a bird of prey might look down a beak.

It took Lenna only the fraction of an instant to rise to her feet, making sure that a smile was spreading over her face as she bobbed a curtsey. Internally, she was ablaze with anxiety. Though he didn't often appear, the Lord of Casterly Rock made her feel queasy, always off her guard.

"My lord," she murmured. "I didn't know you were in King's Landing."

"Just for a brief time. I can never get the queen to come to Casterly Rock and a visit was overdue. You look well, Lady Helenna."

"Thank you, my lord," she replied, the feeling of unease growing. She'd only met the man once, and he never struck her as solicitous.

Tywin's gaze had never wavered, and she wondered if he never blinked. Like a snake. A calculated smile appeared on his once-handsome face, each muscle moving as if commanded to do so one by one. The result was unsettling. He took the five steps needed to reach her and extended a hand. She placed her fingers in his, noting the dry, papery quality of his skin, and Tywin Lannister bowed over her knuckles. He did not kiss her hand, a true gentleman wouldn't, but Lenna wanted to snatch her hand back immediately.

"I had heard you spent a considerable amount of time in the library. Most irregular, don't you think? Wouldn't a young lady rather be sewing or talking or dancing?" He had withdrawn his hand and begun a slow circuit of her workspace, his light green eyes turned upwards at the piles and piles of books. His voice didn't match his face, almost-teasing though his eyes remained cunning. He was observant, and she could almost see him cataloguing what he found: her, the books, the parchments, the ink. She wondered what he made of it.

"I am sure many young ladies would, my lord."

"But not you." He had turned back to her, one eyebrow slanted severely, echoing the quirk of his thin lips.

"I have nothing against sewing or talking or dancing, my lord, in fact I greatly enjoy all three. In the right company." Lenna decided she did not like bantering with the queen's father. Tywin, on the other hand, seemed to derive pleasure from it. He'd even teased her on the day of her arrival. She'd been wary of him then, knowing so little about him. She was terrified of him now.

"And you've found none?" It was a heavily laden question, full of implications she didn't want to address. _No_ , she thought bitterly, _I have found few to call friends, and I'm not sure that those I do would meet your standards. Your own son included._

"I have become quite busy, my lord," Lenna said with a little laugh. No one could ever say that Tywin Lannister's eyes sparkled, but they did glitter. He was looking for a falsehood, and she refused to give him one. The truth was perfectly acceptable in his case, granted it was a carefully selected truth.

"Indeed," he said abruptly, walking a few paces toward her. "My daughter is very impressed with your work with the princess."

"It is easy to work with such a sweet pupil," she replied evenly. Again, not a lie. She adored Myrcella and rejoiced in the little girl's growing. She could already add and subtract, and she knew her letters well enough to read a few of the simpler stories in her red book.

"One wonders where you learned it all," he said, raising his eyebrows. "At your father's knee, perhaps?" _Here it is_ , she thought. After all these years, she still hadn't the foggiest idea why the queen's family hated hers so. If they'd been a rival Great House, it might have been one thing, but the Manderlys were not a Great House. Powerful in their right, rich to be sure, but self-contained and isolated in their harbor far from the workings of the royal court and the Lannisters.

"My father enjoyed reading, my lord, but he was no scholar. No, I'm unlike the rest of my family in that way. Wendel and Wylis were always scrambling for a fight when they were younger, and I suppose are too preoccupied in important matters," she paused to twist her lips in a smirk, "for much outside reading."

It was true, at least from what she remembered. Wendel and Wylis were knights, true ones in every sense of the word, but they were not scholars. That unexpected trait had fallen to her, and her alone.

"But you grew up long after they were boys."

"I did, they are fifteen and twenty years my elders."

"Were you still close?"

She wondered what he was trying to get at, but carefully kept her face pleasant, smiling enough to know that a dimple was winking at the formidable Lord of Casterly Rock.

"No, my lord, my father sometimes joked that I was quite an only child. They were men grown before I was born."

"But your father kept you close."

"He did, as you did the queen, I understand." She was keen to divert the conversation toward away from her family and back to his. She didn't understand what he was getting at, questioning her about her upbringing. Surely, he wasn't trying to exact information. Even if he was, she had none to give.

"How's that?"

"She's spoken on how beneficial it was to learn from you, not just the domestic arts we ladies must master, but the administration of a large province, economics, philosophy. That sort of thing."

"She told you about that?" It was Tywin Lannister's turn to smile. It was a cold thing, and it didn't reach his eyes.

"It is why she decided Myrcella needed a tutor that would teach her more than just embroidery and dancing."

"You." Both pale eyebrows rose with the word.

"Yes, my lord."

"Did you learn statecraft from your father, then?" He had resumed pacing, flipping open books as he roamed, clever eyes darting over the words and then snapping them shut again.

"No, my lord," she chuckled. "He never involved me in those affairs. I was too young, anyway."

"How long have you been in King's Landing now?"

"Nigh seven years." It always flummoxed her to count her years in the capital. The span of time seemed both the blink of an eye and an eternity.

"And never have gone home, from what my daughter tells me."

"No, my lord." _Never asked to go home. Never told I could go home. Never offered the chance._

"One might wonder why."

"My father is a poor correspondent, my lord, and the queen has not given me leave to go. My duty is here, with the princess." It was a struggle to keep her emotions in check. She had folded her hands behind her back so she could squeeze her fingers, eager for some place to channel the tension she felt. She hoped he read it as modesty and fealty.

"A pretty answer." He was regarding her like a lion would a sheep, hidden in the grass with sharp eyes trained as he waited for his opportunity to pounce.

"A truthful one." _Not a lie_.

Tywin Lannister held her eye, and Lenna refused to look away. She had succeeded in keeping her face neutral if not pleasant, but she was damned if she was going to let herself be cowed. He said nothing of import, but she couldn't help but feel like she was being threatened.

"Can I lend you a word of advice, my lady?"

"I would welcome it." _Anything to maneuver the likes of you._

"It does you credit to remember where your duty lies. The education of a princess is no mean endeavor. If you continue as you have, you have a bright future ahead of you in service to this family."

"It is an honor to serve the royal house," Lenna answered smoothly. _Not a lie._

"It is, and such honors are often fleeting." Here he took a long pause to let Lenna feel the full impact of his words. She didn't mistake him. "My youngest son speaks often of you."

"I am very fond of Lord Tyrion." She took the opportunity to think of him and smile, genuinely. She missed him greatly, and found very little of him in his father and siblings.

"I believe the feeling is quite mutual. You will be pleased to know, then, that he will join me in a few days time. His visit is overdue. He has spoken of little besides seeing you again. It seems you have impressed him, and to be quite frank, you have impressed me."

Lenna was stunned. This whole conversation had been some sort of test, she was sure of it. It was looking more and more like she had passed, though she didn't even know what the task had been.

"I will admit that I had no high expectations of you when you arrived," Tywin continued. Lenna started to shake her head. "Do not mistake my meaning, only that many women of the court tend to be alike in certain ways. So do the men. Vain and scheming, or arrogant and vengeful. I will admit, you surprised me even the day of your arrival. I am a hard man to surprise. Then again, a daughter of Wyman Manderly...perhaps I shouldn't have been."

"Is my father so unpredictable?"

"You don't think so?" It sounded innocent, but Lenna knew that it wasn't. Nothing about Tywin Lannister was uncalculated. He may have retracted his claws, but he was still ready.

"I don't know, my lord," she answered guilelessly. "I have not seen my father in nearly seven years, and I hear from him exactly once a year. On my nameday. It is not as if we are confidants. I am not quite sure I would recognize him if I were to see him. I am quite sure he would not recognize me."

"He would," Tywin said gently, though she didn't know the source of his softness. "You look so like your mother you could be her twin."

Lenna smiled a little lopsidedly, a gentle flow of grief threading through her. "I have heard that said before. I am glad of it."

"She was close friends with my late wife, you know."

"I did not," Lenna replied, surprised.

"I believe Joanna introduced your parents to each other." Tywin had stopped his pacing, turning to look at Lenna full in the face. His jaw was set, a muscle twitching along the bone.

"That surprises me," Lenna said openly. "I did not know my mother knew any of the Lannisters."

"They were both ladies-in-waiting here in King's Landing for a time. Your mother came to Lannisport with my wife once. For a festival, I believe. It was there that she met your father."

"My father in Lannisport?" It burst out of her in shock. All she could think of was her father's distaste for the Lannister family. She couldn't imagine him anywhere except White Harbor, and certainly not in the Westerlands.

"Your father was fostered at Casterly Rock," Tywin said, his brows narrowing in a facsimile of confusion. "We grew up together. Did he really never mention it?"

"He may have, but perhaps I didn't pay attention," Lenna said, attempting to recover from her misstep. Honestly, she was shocked. Never, in her entire life, had her parents ever mentioned her father's time in the Westerlands.

Tywin straightened his shoulders and looked at her shrewdly.

"I believe that to be very unlikely, my lady. I do not think much escapes your notice, now does it?"

Lenna smiled wryly, her blood still frothy with confusion.

"So many people underestimate the power of quiet observation," he continued. "Lesser men are too busy filling the air with themselves. But you see things, don't you?"

"Things, no," she replied, not quite understanding his meaning. "I am rather naive, I think, when it comes to the games powerful people play. Like statecraft. It boggles me. No, but I do see people." She knew she was babbling. To Tywin Lannister. _Shut up_.

"Character."

"That may be a word for it, my lord. Though perhaps I am unwise to say so. It is folly to have too much confidence in one's own abilities. It leads to foolish mistakes."

"The fool who persists in his folly will become wise."

Lenna took a long moment to mull his words over in her head.

"Is that why I was called here, my lord? I had wondered."

"You are becoming wiser by the moment, my dear," he purred, his lip twisting up into a smirk that made Lenna feel like she'd either just said something clever, or very, very stupid.

Clegane VII

Cersei was sitting at her desk, her father at the mantle. The children toddled at Clegane's feet. He hated being alone with them, infrequently as it happened, though this was the first time in years. They both acted as if he were part of the room, an insensible table or chair instead of a person with two working ears. Well, one ear and the remains of the other, but they both worked. He heard things he didn't wish to, ignored things he wanted no knowledge of. Today, Tywin was slowly pacing back and forth in front of the hearth. It was chillier than usual, and the flames were stoked. Clegane stayed as far away as possible.

"I spoke with Myrcella's tutor this afternoon." Tywin halted, standing and staring into the fire.

"Ah yes, Lady Helenna. Your special interest," Cersei said, barely looking up from her desk. Clegane could detect a note of humor in her voice.

"Interesting girl." _You have no idea_.

"I suppose." Cersei was still looking at her papers, paying her father as little attention as possible.

"You've done well with her." Tywin was prompting her now. He got easily frustrated with Cersei when she was in such a mood. He expected to command attention anytime he wished, even if it was from the queen. In his mind, Clegane believed, she was only the queen until she was his daughter, and when he wanted to talk to his daughter, she had best listen.

"How do you mean?"

"The young lady is intelligent, and she is shrewder than I would have first guessed. She may prove useful to us."

Clegane groaned inwardly. Lenna was not adept at their games, no matter how deeply she was mired in them. She had made so many mistakes, ones he was able to salvage, but nonetheless. He knew she needed to learn, to understand how this terrible game worked, but at the same time he rued the loss of her artlessness. That she should become just another pawn in the Lannister game-

"She is already useful, far more useful than we ever anticipated." Cersei did not want to talk with her father, and Clegane felt like an outburst was near.

"I don't mean as Myrcella's tutor." He spat out the last word without attempting to conceal his disdain.

"What do you mean, then?" _Here it comes_ , Clegane thought. Cersei had finally set down her quill, turning her head to her father with all the imperious grace she possessed.

"Perhaps it would do, in the coming years, to have a Northern ally." Tywin looked at Cersei in deadly seriousness. A current passed between the two, but Clegane could not follow it. It was evident that this was an ongoing conversation between the two of them, one he didn't have all the particulars about.

"The North will never cede to us, you know that," Cersei spat, trying once again to take up her pen.

"And we could never beat them, but-" Tywin trailed off, hands behind his back as his eyes were foggy and distant.

"But what?" Cersei was growing impatient, again setting down her quill.

"Someone who understands them, the way they think, that could be most beneficial."

"Helenna Manderly is hardly an astute politician." Cersei cocked her eyebrow at her father, a little smirk twisting her mouth. _No, she's not_ , Clegane wanted to say. _Leave her be_.

"She is not, and readily admitted to me that she isn't. However, she has a certain aptitude-"

"For reading books and teaching children."

"For observation. And she is innocent-" _She is more than innocent, she is good._

"I won't have her used ill, father, I feel strongly enough about cutting her off from her family," Cersei snapped.

"Has it been that bad for the girl?" Tywin's tone was unexpectedly sober. If Clegane didn't know him, he'd almost think he had some sort of sympathy for the girl. Tywin Lannister seldom concerned himself with the happiness of others, but there was a tinge of regret in his voice that was unprecedented.

 _Yes_ , Clegane wanted to yell, _she is miserable_. _Dying every day._ He kept his face blank. Not that it would have mattered. They never glanced his way.

"I still don't see why we ever brought her here. I'm glad, of course, that Myrcella has had the opportunity to benefit from her, but-" Cersei said, still unwilling to think of the Maid of Manderly as anything other than her daughter's tutor.

"It was the right move. She is ours." Tywin Lannister was used to commanding thousands of men with a single word. His daughter was no different, and she became thoughtful at the finality in his tone.

"She is loyal," Cersei said slowly. "I would not doubt her allegiance to us for a moment."

"No, neither would I, and you know that I'm a dedicated cynic. If she wasn't a Manderly, I'd marry her off to Tyrion or Jaime."

Dread started spreading through Clegane's veins like a poison. The thought of her married to the Imp, or, even worse, handsome Jaime Lannister made him feel ill in the pit of his stomach. It would be an extremely advantageous marriage for her house. She would become the second most powerful woman in the realm after the queen herself. _She would be theirs in every sense_ , he thought forlornly. Theirs to whelp the next generation of their dynasty on, to suckle and raise strong, ferociously intelligent brats to continue their quest to take over the Seven Kingdoms. He wanted to groan.

"Jaime is a Kingsguard." Clegane heard the note of displeasure in the queen's voice that her father either missed or ignored. It consoled him to hear the queen as opposed to the idea as he was.

"That could be...amended." When Cersei arched a brow back at her father, Tywin smirked and changed tack. "Tyrion, then. She'd make a fine Lady of Casterly Rock."

"A higher station she couldn't dream of." Cersei didn't seem completely opposed to this idea, her face softening. Lenna Manderly had wormed her way into Cersei's favor, if not her affections. Clegane knew it was to her benefit, but at the moment, he wanted to strike something. Or someone. Namely the Imp.

"She'd be your sister."

That sobered the queen. "But you're not actually entertaining this idea."

Tywin Lannister took a long moment to think before he responded. It seemed to Clegane that it lasted a lifetime. A lifetime to think about Helenna Manderly with a golden lion slung around her shoulders in the Sept of Baelor, her face oddly radiant, the Imp looking up at her with that indulgent expression he often wore around her. _So similar to mine_.

"No." Sweet relief flooded Clegane and he released the breath he'd been holding as Tywin continued. "Unfortunately. Though I think, oddly enough, that it would be a good match. But I do not trust Wyman enough to align our houses in such a way."

"More the pity for Tyrion. I believe he grew rather fond of the girl during his last visit."

"And she of him, though I've spied no symptoms of love. Mutual affection, respect, yes, but not love."

"I did not marry for love." The bitterness in her voice surprised Clegane. He had often thought Cersei a bored woman, but it never occurred to him that she was unhappy. Who could be unhappy as queen of the Seven Kingdoms, with all the money and servants in the realm at her command?

"No, you did not, my dear. But you are queen. Is that not better?"

Cersei looked aside. She picked up her quill and returned to her notes, bracing her forehead in her hand.

"Please, Father. Leave Helenna Manderly be."

Clegane had never felt gratitude like that before, and certainly not toward the queen. But in response to the queen's request, one that could not be ignored by her father, he tilted his head back against the wall and closed his eyes, thanking whatever powers there were that _she_ might be spared, even if just for a time.

He should have known better than to think that the Lion of Casterly Rock would back down at the request of his queenly daughter.

"Send her home," he said quietly.

That certainly go Cersei's attention. "Myrcella needs her, I can't just send her home."

"Yes, you can. Not forever, but put her on a ship and send her home for a visit. Three weeks, a month, not very long. And when she returns, I want to be here. Tyrion's nameday, perhaps. We'll have a celebration for him."

"Won't he smell something rotten?" Cersei asked. "We've never celebrated him before."

"Perhaps, but what will he do about it?"

"I can't just put the girl on a ship without a guard."

"Clegane," Tywin snapped, turning his gimlet eyes towards the guard.

"You can't just requisition our most trusted guard for a mere slip of a girl-"

"He swore an oath, did he not?" Tywin asked his daughter. "When you wrote to me about the girl becoming Myrcella's tutor, you thought it extraordinary enough to note."

"Yes, but-"

"Then it is decided. Clegane will travel with Lady Helenna to White Harbor." Tywin turned his glare to Clegane. He'd remained completely still throughout the entire argument, but now he met his liege lord's eye without hesitation. "You who always said you swear no oaths."

Tywin's lips twisted, his eyes like crystals. Clegane felt his organs turn to lead.

Cersei's face was stony with perturbation. Her lips were flat and her jaw clenched, though her eyes were alight with anger.

"Very well," she replied calmly. "I'll send a raven to Manderly. She'll be on her way within the week."

Clegane closed his eyes briefly and wondered what in the hell Tywin Lannister was up to.


	12. Chapter 12

Lenna IX

She was greatly befuddled by her conversation with the Lord of Casterly Rock. She was left feeling like she was standing in the breakers, the waves washing the sand out from around her feet until she suddenly found herself mired ankle deep. The revelations about her father confused her greatly, and she felt like there was some great piece to that puzzle that was yet missing, something that needed to be uncovered before the last six years made sense.

If that wasn't enough upset for one time, she was now standing on the deck of a ship speeding across the waters toward the home she hadn't seen in six years. She was unsure how exactly she felt about the fact, torn between raw excitement and yearning, and a terrible fear of the welcome she might find. She knew, at least, that Wynna would be glad to see her, and she tried to console herself with that knowledge. The thought of her father's anger, however, left her feeling sick to the pit of her stomach, and so helpless she couldn't think straight. She was so distracted by these thoughts that when the ship pitched she lost her footing, groping wildly at the railing to keep her balance.

"Steady there," Sandor murmured, grasping her upper arm and setting her back on her feet. He was standing beside her, silently watching the water. He must have just come up from settling his rucksack below.

It had happened so quickly. The queen had summoned her the morning after her conversation with Tywin Lannister. It was only the second time she had been called that way, and she had been just as nervous that afternoon as she was the first time. Cersei had even sent Sandor, and from the moment Lenna saw him, she knew something was off.

For one, he refused to look at her, his jaw set like he was biting his tongue. He'd come to her room before she even made it to the Sept or the library, and seeing him stony-faced on the other side of her door had caused a wash of cold apprehension to run through her veins. When she'd tried to get him to speak, he had shaken his head and kept walking, bearing her back before the queen without a word.

Once there, Cersei had imparted her wishes in the most businesslike terms. Lenna was to return to White Harbor for a time to see her family. She was to remain there for two weeks, then return at the beginning of the following month. The ship would leave the following morning, and she and Clegane were to be on it.

She'd been elated. Six years since she'd been home, two years since she'd had a letter from them, and that one only because Sandor had stolen it. She had fluttered about in an ecstatic haze, but the enormous man that was to accompany her looked grim, his gray eyes hard.

They had embarked that very morning from King's Landing. A servant had arrived before dawn to wake her and collect her things. She hoped she had brought enough with her. She had been so shocked by the queen's orders that she had trouble packing properly, and she had been so distracted that the only book that had made it into her luggage was the red book of tales she had brought with her years before.

He had met her in the courtyard astride the most massive black warhorse she'd ever seen. He was fully armored, as usual, even his helm in place, the sun glinting wickedly off the sharpened points of the hound's teeth. She had to admit that the two of them were a grim picture, but a magnificent one all the same. Astride her own little gray palfrey, the same Prim she'd brought with her when she arrived, she felt positively miniscule.

She looked up into his face. He still looked grim as he stood there looking down at her with his hands on her shoulders, the sea breeze ruffling his long hair. If he looked windswept, she didn't want to imagine how she appeared. The sight of him pleased her. It was only the second time she'd seen him without his armor clad only in a plain tunic and trousers with a leather jerkin, much as he had been the midnight he'd carried her letter. He'd already pulled a thick dark cloak pulled around his hulking shoulders, whereas she was quite comfortable in the old woolen dress she'd pulled from the bottom of her chest. It was two inches too short, and much too tight across the bust and hips, but she felt more at ease in it than she had in the dozens of silken gowns she'd worn since she last left home.

"Settled in?" she asked with a smile, taking in the change in his appearance with a smile. He still looked dour, but he also seemed more relaxed, his mein placid and shoulders hanging loose. It made her smile. Despite her foreboding, she couldn't help but be excited. _I am going home,_ she thought, a flutter of excitement in her chest. She knew it would be a long week and a half careening around the Fingers, and this ship was considerably less comfortable than the one her father had sent her to King's Landing on. Her cabin was little more than a closet, so she couldn't imagine what Sandor had been given.

"I'll manage," he replied, releasing her and turning to squint against the glare of the sun on the water. Even his voice was smoother, less raspy.

"Are you looking forward to seeing White Harbor?" she asked, leaning on the railing with her elbows. He mimicked her posture, his head bent quite close to hers.

"Not really," he replied. A part of her deflated, but she tried not to let him bother her.

"I can't wait to show it to you," she said lightly, looking back over the waves. "The Wolf's Den and Seal Rock and the New Castle, and you'll love the Merman's Court."

"Of course you are eager to see your home," he said, picking at his fingers. It was one of his habits she had noted that meant he was uncomfortable. He only ever picked his nails when he didn't know what to say.

"I'm glad it was you who was sent with me."

"Why?" he asked bluntly, looking at her from the corner of his eye.

"I don't know what I'll find when I get there, what kind of welcome," she replied cautiously. "Wynna will be pleased to see me, but my father- I don't know if he will. It will be a comfort to have at least one friendly face, regardless of what I find," she replied, looking at him askance. His eyes were still focused far off on the horizon, but the corner of his mouth quirked up, the deep groove that framed it curving into something more like a smile.

"He will be glad," he said softly.

They stood and watched the water for a long time, Lenna rejoicing in the everlasting roll of the water. It had fascinated her since childhood, the way she could train her eye on one wave or ripple and follow it, only to have it disappear seamlessly into another. Always moving, always changing, never the same from one moment to the next. Never leaving a trace of itself behind, a part of the larger body. As much as it gave her peace, standing there with his silent, comforting bulk beside her and watching the water, there were pressing matters to speak of, ones that couldn't wait any longer.

"Sandor, happy as I am, am I right in thinking this has nothing to do with the queen's kindness?" It had been bothering her constantly for the last day, and he was the only one she knew that might be able to answer. She needed to talk it over before her memory dimmed or changed.

"You would be right." He looked down at his hands, his brow creased.

"I think it has something to do with Lord Tywin," she began.

He looked at her sharply but said nothing.

"I was studying, day before yesterday. He just, well, he just appeared. I think he was looking for me."

Sandor grunted. "He was."

"Do you know why I am being sent home? To what end?"

He shook his head, shifting on his feet as he continued to watch the waves.

"Please," she said, "I need to know. I don't know which way is up anymore."

"Don't you just want to go home? See your family?" he replied, snap in his tone.

"Of course I do," she protested.

"The less you know-"

"The less equipped I am. I'm quite sure that I'm hurtling into deeper waters that I could possibly know."

He considered his words carefully. "He thinks you are theirs. Their ally. Theirs to use."

"I suppose both are true," she replied. "I am loyal, and I have been Myrcella's tutor."

"I don't think that's what he meant," he replied shortly, his nostrils flaring.

"It has been my honor to serve the royal house."

"Lenna," he said quietly. "You haven't been serving the royal house."

Something brittle and hot started burning in her chest.

"Of course I have," she whispered. "I'm tutor to Myrcella Baratheon, princess of the realm."

"Who called you to King's Landing? Who gave that order? Who has sent you here?" he asked urgently. "You aren't a stupid girl, but fuck all if you aren't naive."

"You can't mean that they-"

"Aye. You aren't a servant of the Crown, Lenna. You're _their_ servant, just as I am. We are both of us Lannisters now."

All Tywin's talk of loyalty wasn't about the Crown. Here she had always thought of herself as a servant of the Crown, but she had missed the key detail of who it was the gave her orders. Cersei may be queen, but it was not exactly secret that she still worked to enrich her own house. Lenna hadn't been appointed by the king, but by the queen, to train her daughter as she had been raised by her father, the Lord of Casterly Rock. Like a Lannister. _Of course_ , she thought dejectedly, _that's why Tywin wanted me to know about father, to know my family's connection to his. He wasn't speaking of loyalty to the Crown, he was speaking of loyalty to_ _them_ _._

"What did you talk about with him? The other day in the library?" Sandor asked gently.

"He kept asking me questions, about my family. About how my father raised me. Then, he told me something most peculiar, that has caused me great distress." Her brow knitted together as she remembered his words, the cataclysmic information that rocked her to her foundations.

Sandor cocked a thick brow at her.

"He told me that my father had been fostered at Casterly Rock. He grew up with Lord Tywin."

The brow shot up in surprise, creating a series of ripples across his unscarred brow.

"He went on to say that his late wife introduced my parents, and he was surprised I did not know of the story."

"You didn't?"

"No," Lenna said forcefully. "I had no idea that my father had been in the Westerlands, or even that my mother had been a lady-in-waiting for a time. I can't imagine why they would keep either from me, but I cannot help but believe that they did so deliberately. My father has always hated the Lannisters. I have never heard him say a good word about them. To hear that they knew each other in such a way was a complete shock."

Sandor looked skeptical. "What else did he say?"

"It was so strange, he seems to think I am wise? I think he's conflating intelligence with wisdom, and I told him as much, that I was a poor player of this game. I even called myself foolish."

"Aye, you're right there," he said with conviction. She chose to ignore it.

"Then he said something else: 'the fool who persists in his folly becomes wise.'"

"Fuck if I know what that means," he replied, shaking his head. "But I don't usually understand what he means until long after."

"Me either. It makes me uneasy. Truthfully, he scares me, Sandor."

"He should," he said, looking at her full in the face. "Lenna, you can trust none of them. Not even Lord Tyrion. When we return, you must not speak to any of them about this."

"But Tyrion-"

"No," he bit out. "Not even him. You're being swatted around like a mouse, and I don't know for what purpose yet. I'm sure it will become clear soon enough. You must talk of this to no one. You can bet they are counting on you to squeak to someone."

"I am," she said quietly, her eyes widening slightly. "I'm squeaking to you."

"Do you think I'd be the one to tell them? really?"

"I don't know," she mumbled, her voice small.

She looked at him full in the face and saw a trace of hurt. Oddly, it was most noticeable on the scarred side of his face, his eye drooping a little more than it had before, the cheek a little more withered. She couldn't help it. If she was to trust no one, how could she trust him? What if all his years of odd kindnesses had simply been orders he was bound to follow as their servant? What if he meant none of them, the risks, the ribbons? She reached up and touched the gray one that bound the end of her braid. He'd left it for her on her last nameday, the month before, adding it to the green one from the previous year. An unlooked for kindness. _Don't be a fool_ , _of course he meant it._

"I swore an oath. I'll keep it," he said slowly, his dark voice pitched low, his eyes on her fingers as they ran over the smooth weave of the satin, then on her eyes.

"Against your liege lords?"

"Even then," he bit out. "I told you, there's a reason I don't take oaths. When I do, I fucking keep them."

A rush of something blazing and biting hurtled through her chest. His face was still cast with hurt, but his eyes were earnest. She smiled slightly, half-heartedly, and his features relaxed into something more like their familiar scowl.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "Of course you will. I'm just-"

He huffed out a breath. "Scared. You should be scared. I want you to be scared," he said. A long moment of silence passed between them as they watched the endless ribbon of the sea. He sighed. "Nothing would stop you from staying in White Harbor," he said quietly, "and not go back."

"I am to be back by the beginning of the month," she replied, not quite grasping his meaning.

"That was the order, aye. But who will drag you there? It certainly won't be me." He wrestled with something unspoken for a moment, so evident in his eyes, before turning his gaze back to the sea.

Sandor IX

It took them a little over a week to sail from King's Landing to White Harbor. He took an almost perverse pleasure in the trip, greedily lapping up the time he got to spend with her, like a dog who has come across a spilled bucket of cream. They stayed on deck most days, and he enjoyed watching the wind stir in her hair, making it whip about her like sea-snakes, her cheeks rosy from the wind that got crisper with each day.

They didn't talk about unpleasantness after the first day. He figured there would be time enough for that later. Instead, he encouraged her to talk about her home as much as possible, and he delighted in watching her excitement grow. Every day, they would stand at the rail and without fail she would point out some landmark or other. A lighthouse, an interesting outcropping of rock, an island covered with forest. All the while, she called him by his name in her laughing voice, no longer worried about who might overhear them. He found himself using hers in the same way, enjoying the way her eyes lit up when he said it, like it meant as much to her as it did to him. He didn't even mind listening to her read her fucking stories of knights and dragons and maidens-fair as long as she kept saying his name and letting him use hers.

Looking at her was distracting for other reasons. She had taken to tying her hair back simply, if at all, always with one of his ribbons. He realized now that she'd had none before he placed the first on her desk over a year ago. Green, shot with gold, the ends of it were beginning to fray because she wore it so often. He'd added a second on her last nameday, a dove gray, slipping it under her door before she rose to face the sorrow-laden raven. It had made his chest tight to see her wearing it that afternoon, woven through her hair like he wished he could weave his fingers.

She had also put off the court style of dress and taken to wearing her old garb, much as he had abandoned his armor while they were on the ship. Surely, she must have known that she had outgrown them. After all, the last time she had worn them she had been a girl of fifteen, not a woman of twenty-one. She was nearly spilling out the top of them, her chemise barely serving its purpose, and he continuously got glimpses of her nipples, pebbled against the straining fabric by the chilly winds. Add to this the way the wool stretched across her hips and backside and he was in an almost constant state of arousal.

Not that he really minded.

He relished every moment he got her to himself, even coaxing, or rather daring, her into singing once or twice, her sweet voice for his ears alone. He'd often daydreamed about just that, commanding a song from the Lady of White Harbor, getting to listen to her voice and know it was just for him. Though when she had once suggested _Come again, sweet love_ , he had objected. He didn't know that he'd have been able to control himself with those lyrics on her lips again, and her in such close proximity to him with none to see them. He wondered for a split second what she would do if he leaned over and kissed her, but he brusquely batted the idea away as he had the suggestion of the song, asking instead for _The Bear and the Maiden Fair_. She had laughed and colored, but she'd sung it anyway, her rendition garnering whoops and hollers from the crewmen. Though bawdy, it didn't stir him the way the other did.

Now he stood beside her at the rail as they slid smoothly into White Harbor. He should have been taking in their surroundings, but he was far too involved in watching her, the way her eyes seemed to glow when she spied the bleached ramparts of the New Castle, her family's banners streaming bright against the pale Northern Sky. He could imagine, when her eyes turned to him with that light inside them, that he had put that gleam there.

He'd never been this far north before, had never made it further than Robert's Rebellion had taken him. White Harbor was far larger than he imagined, much grander than he'd thought she'd hailed from, though why he thought so he didn't know. He knew the Manderlys were rich and powerful, that White Harbor was one of the five great cities, but he'd never imagined that she'd come from the family that commanded a place like this, plain and simple but obviously wealthy. She was born to be a great lady, even if she wasn't from a great house. The castle itself was solid and prudently constructed but enormous all the same, and even he had to admit there was a beauty to its clean lines and simple architecture. It wasn't as ornate as the Red Keep, and certainly not as overwrought as Casterly Rock. It looked honest, and seeing it helped him understand the woman standing beside him a little bit better.

"What do you think, Sandor? How does White Harbor look to you?" she asked turning to him, tears in her eyes. She laughed as she wiped them away with the back of her hand.

"Like a port," he replied woodenly. _Beautiful_ , he wanted to say, _and honest, and good. Like you_.

She laughed again, and the sound tore at him. The journey had been too brief, he thought as she retreated below decks to prepare. He followed, putting his armor on piece by piece. He would need a squire to tighten the straps, but it would do. It felt heavy and unwieldy after a week without it, and with it came more than just physical discomfort.

It made him keenly aware of why they were there and who he really was.

As he strapped on his plate, he put Sandor away and reminded himself that they queen had sent her Hound. No more afternoons spent listening to her read and sing on the sunny deck of the ship, watching the wind whip his ribbons in her hair, imagining that they were different people, that she cared for him. It was such a simple fantasy, one that had consumed him, one that he didn't want to emerge from despite the fact that it was a lie, just his own imagination. The easiness which he'd relished for the last week was transformed to heaviness that went beyond the physical weight of the hauberk and mail and plate, beyond the heft of his longsword on his hip or the press of his dagger in his boot, and settled into his chest like lead.

He felt his chest clench, knowing what he had to do, who he was doing it for. _At least she's safe_. He hadn't lied when he didn't tell her why she'd been sent home. He had simply refused to speak. He hadn't wanted to spoil her excitement. _There is plenty of time for that later_. The day he'd brought Lenna to see the queen, he had been briefed. If he was to go with her, he would serve a purpose. He was to find out three very specific things: how many ships Wyman Manderly had at his command, how many more he was capable of building in a short period of time, and how many troops were in his garrison.

Sandor didn't like the sound of that, and he couldn't imagine why he was being asked to ferret it out. Well, he could imagine it, but it didn't make much sense to him. It sounded like war preparations, but the realm had been peaceful since King Robert's ascent to the Iron Throne with the small exception of the Greyjoy Rebellion. That had been settled fairly quickly, the Iron Islands brought back into the fold, Balon Greyjoy brought to heel, and Theon Greyjoy sent as a hostage to the North.

It had all the hallmarks of a Lannister plot, the deeply laid plans, the piecemeal execution, but just what the plot was he would have to bide his time and see.

He stood at the railing and squinted up against the brilliance of the city. He hadn't realized that White Harbor was literally white. It was blinding, so blinding that he didn't immediately notice her until she was beside him on the deck, arrayed again in her court dress, though this time she had a stout woolen cloak. He recognized it as being the same one she'd worn when she'd entered King's Landing years before.

"It's nearly new," she said, following his gaze to the roughspun folds. "I didn't get any wear out of it at all in the capital."

"No, I'd expect not," he replied, slinging his own cloak around his armor and fastening it firmly. They walked down the gangplank to the waiting horses, and he smiled to himself when she swung herself easily up into her saddle. He followed suit and secured his helm. When he looked at her, she was looking at the snarling dog with an expression of aversion. _Hound again_.

They were met at the gate by a company of Wyman Manderly's city guards, each carrying the signature trident of White Harbor, the cold sun glinting wickedly from the tines. He thought idly that he'd never fought with a trident, and he rather hoped he'd have the opportunity to train with one while he was there. Between his spying.

He was struck with how different the city was from King's Landing. For one, the air seemed cleaner. There was no cloying stench of the slums like the smell that clung to Flea Bottom and Gin Alley. There didn't seem to be much poverty in general. The people they passed were simply dressed, but they were open-faced and tidy. The homes were humble, but they were well-tended and hospitable, children playing on the cobblestones out front. There were curious grates running on either side of the street for as far as he could see, wrought from iron.

"It's the sewer system," Lenna said from beside him, following his gaze. "My father devised it before I was born. It carries the waste out of the city to a point beyond the fishing zones, downstream. It keeps the smell out, and it's far safer for the people. They don't sicken as much, he says."

Sandor nodded. It made sense. He wondered how she had stomached all those years in the stench of the capital if she had grown up somewhere like this.

"I think Lannisport has something similar," he said, "but perhaps not as well-developed."

He was right. Lannisport had a sewer as well, as did Casterly Rock, but it hadn't been run through the sections of the city where the poorest people lived. They had been allowed to continue to live in their own filth. It seemed Wyman Manderly took a different approach to his responsibilities to his people.

They passed an ancient looking fortress at the base of the harbor. It was built of gray stone and had a dreary look to it.

"The Wolf's Den," Lenna said. He smirked that she should be playing at a guide. "It's the oldest part of the city. King Jon Stark raised it before the Conquest. Before there were any Manderlys in the North."

"What do you mean?"

"We are originally from the Reach, but we were exiled. It's a long story," she replied. "And now we've reached the Castle Stair."

Before them stretched a wide path of white stone that rose in wide landings easy enough for Stranger and her little grey palfrey to climb without winding themselves. On either side were rows of marble mermaids, each one different from the next, their smooth faces serene as they cradled flame in their arms. Somehow every one one of them looked just like her.

"Whale oil," Lenna said. "Many of our seafarers hunt whales for their oil. But whales produce many useful things."

"Like what?"

"Their bone for tools, their meat is good for eating, and sometimes we find ambergris." He looked at her questioningly. She smiled. "For making perfume."

At the top of the stair, she surprised him by reining her horse around. Below them lay the harbor, spread out in both directions.

"The outer harbor," she said, pointing to the left, "is separated from the inner harbor by the jetty wall. It's our first line of defense. The inner harbor, obviously, is where we anchored. The gate we came through is called the Seal Gate, because of that." She pointed to a large gray-green rock jutting out of the waters of the outer harbor. He estimated it was about fifty feet tall, and it's base was covered with the glistening brown bodies of seals. At the top were the remains of something man-made that he couldn't quite make out from the distance. "Seal Rock."

She took a moment to look over it all, and he thought he heard her sigh.

"Come," she said quietly, bringing her horse back around.

"Wait," he said, holding out a hand. "What's that?"

He was looking at structure that rivalled the Sept of Baelor, domed in white and surmounted by tremendous statues.

"That's the Sept of the Snows," she said quietly. "My father is Shield of the Faith. The statues are the Seven. See, there's the Warrior, and the Stranger, and the Maiden."

He squinted and could make out the hood of his warhorse's namesake, the blade of the Warrior, the uplifted arms of the Maiden.

"Aren't Northerners followers of the Old Gods?" He knew the answer, that she wasn't. He knew because he watched her in the Sept all the time, even six years later. At least once a week, he found himself standing in the shadows mesmerized as she made her prayers to her gods. Now he was buying time before he had to give her over to her family. He could still feel Sandor struggling to push out from under the armor, wanting just a few more minutes.

"We brought the Faith with us when we were expelled from the Reach," she explained. "White Harbor follows the Seven, though our liege House is of the Old Gods. There is a godswood in the Wolf's Den, though I have never seen it."

He nodded, turning Stranger back toward the castle. He leaned back in the saddle to see to the tops of the towers.

"And this is the New Castle," she said quietly. "This is home."

It looked awfully cold to be her home, but he could hear the warmth in her voice as she spoke. The walls were blindingly white, no algae would dare green its surface, and hung from the crenellated walls were banners the same color as the handkerchiefs she carried, a vivid aqua-blue, emblazoned with a merman and his trident, green hair streaming behind him.

He slowed Stranger so that he would enter behind her rather than beside, taking a breath as he became fully the Hound again. He kept his visor up as they came into the broad courtyard and he found himself before Wyman Manderly.

The party that greeted them was small, but there was no mistaking them. There was no fanfare for her return, but standing in the middle of the yard were three men and two girls. The man in the middle was enormously fat with a mop of curling, wild hair and a crisp goatee, all snowy white. He was dressed in the aqua of their house. Beside him stood two more robust men, one a little shorter than the other. One had curls of dark gold, the other of the same almost-black as Lenna. They all had the odd green eyes, lit up by the cold harbor sun.

One of the girls could have been Lenna's sister, though her hair was rather lighter and her eyes more blue than green. _Wynna_ , he guessed. The girl standing next to her was pug-faced and fair-haired, but it had been dyed a shocking green and wrapped in a strand of pearls.

He dismounted, handing Stranger's reins to the stable boy but instructing him not to attempt to lead the beast. He was temperamental and libel to take off the boy's hand. He'd take care of him himself once Lenna was delivered.

He went to help her dismount, but it was unneeded. She slid off easily and walked slowly toward her family. At a respectable distance she paused and dropped a deep curtsey to her father.

"By the gods, Lenna," the old man blustered. Sandor noted that there were tears running openly down the man's face as he looked at his daughter. "You look just like her. I had forgotten."

"Papa," she replied brokenly, crossing the distance between them and throwing her arms around the massive man's shoulders.

"You are home," Manderly murmured, over and over, clutching her to him and rocking her back and forth as if she were a child. "You are here."

It was painful to watch, to see her wrapped up in such care in the span of a few seconds, knowing she had been without it for so many years. One by one, each of the Manderly's joined together until there was one weeping, laughing mound of them standing inelegantly in the courtyard of their castle.

Sandor felt intensely uncomfortable and out of place. _And jealous_. Just as he was about to make himself known, Lenna seemed to remember him.

"Papa," she said, pulling out of all of their embrace, wiping her eyes but still beaming, "this is Sandor Clegane, he's the queen's personal bodyguard."

"Ser Sandor," Manderly said icily.

"I'm not a ser," Sandor replied, just as frostily.

"I thank you for bringing my daughter safely home to us."

Sandor grunted, noting the way the men were forcing themselves to look at him, how the blonde girl wouldn't raise her eyes. The other one looked at him much the same way her aunt had done that first time, with curiosity rather than disgust, able to meet his eye without hesitation.

"I am sure you are tired. The guards will show you to the barracks. A private bunk has been prepared for you there."

"My lord," he replied, tipping his helm in a nod. He turned on his heel to take Stranger's reins from the stable boy.

"Clegane," Lenna called. It hit him like a brick. _Already the Lady of White Harbor again._ He stiffened and half turned back to her. "You'll come to supper."

"As my lady commands," he replied levelly, a glower returning to his face.

She smiled, turning back to her father, seizing both of his hands, running her fingers over her nieces faces, forgetting him.


	13. Chapter 13

Lenna X

She was exhausted after the tearful reunion with her family, so much so that her father insisted she looked thin and wan, and that she must retire for a rest to recover her strength before supper. She was loathe to part from them so soon after arriving, but she was also grateful to retreat, overwhelmed to her core.

Wynna and Wylla walked with her back to her room, her feet slipping over the paving stones of their own accord, never having forgotten the way. _How could they_ , she asked herself, _when I followed this same path for so many happy years?_

Her nieces chattered away like magpies, just like she remembered. Wynna was a graceful sixteen, almost as tall as her aunt, with wide, intelligent blue eyes. She saw much, and she reminded Lenna of herself at that age, all self-conscious courtesy. Her sister, on the other hand, was her opposite. As fair as her sister was dark, as boisterous as Wynna was composed, Wylla, now thirteen, babbled and chirped, all nervous energy and brash enthusiasm.

"You must tell us everything about the capital," Wylla gushed. "I simply love your gown."

"Are you quite warm enough, Lenna?" Wynna asked, looking at the silken material of the dress in concern, rubbing it between her fingers. "This is so thin."

"I'm fine. My cloak is enough, and besides, I haven't got any acceptable woolen to wear."

"You should order some while you are here," Wynna replied sensibly.

"I'll have no use for it in King's Landing. It would just go into the bottom of a trunk," Lenna replied with a laugh. "Believe it or not, this is same cloak I left in. It has spent the last six years carefully folded and it's practically new."

"You don't mean to go back?" Wynna asked, her delicate brows meeting in confusion. "To King's Landing? We rather thought you'd stay."

"Of course I am going back," Lenna laughed.

"Well, we want you to stay," Wylla said ferociously. "Though you can send that guard back. Gods, what a face. I don't know how you stood being on a ship with him by yourself for a whole week."

"Wylla, that is unkind," Lenna said quietly. Truthfully, her niece's words angered her.

"Like raw meat-"

"You get used to it. Believe me, his face not nearly as bad as his tongue," she smirked.

"You like him," Wynna said bluntly, cocking her head.

"Yes, I do," Lenna replied, just as bluntly. "Clegane is honest, and brave, though perhaps a little rough, but he's a good man."

"But his _face_ , what on earth happened to him?" Wylla chimed in.

"He has never told me, but I can tell you that it was very painful. It was a very long time ago, and if you want to escape his presence with your life you won't dare ask him."

"Of course not," Wylla replied sheepishly, as if she had been thinking of doing that very thing.

"And be kind to him, though he may growl and sputter at you. He's not as used to it as he should be," Lenna said quietly.

"Is he the one they call the Hound?" Wynna asked.

"Yes." How she hated that name.

"We've heard of him. I'm sure Grandpapa mentioned it-"

"Yes, he was livid when he heard the queen had assigned him to guard you and the little princess," Wylla burst out, her eyes bright with scandal.

"Wait, the queen did what?" Lenna asked quickly.

"The queen writes. Sends a raven at least once a month. She wrote immediately when you had been appointed tutor, and when Grandpapa read that man's name I thought he'd have an apoplexy," Wylla giggled.

Lenna looked at Wynna. The other girl looked back at her flatly. _We have so much to discuss, my dear_ , Lenna thought.

They arrived at her room, and Lenna was grateful for the opportunity to think. When they opened the door, though, a fresh wave of grief suddenly seized her.

Everything was as she had left it the day of her departure, right down to the teacup on the windowsill and the book on the bed's counterpane. Her doll still lay on the pillow, placed there herself the morning she left, when she decided she was too old to take a doll with her to the capital. The room was spotless, regularly dusted, the windows open to the harbor breeze. The only change was the addition of her chest at the foot of the bed, recently deposited there by some servant or other.

"He only allowed the maids in here to clean, they were never allowed to move anything," Wynna said softly. Lenna felt her eyes well up.

"I am very tired," she said, turning to the girls. "I would sleep a while."

"Of course," the girls murmured. The three of them briefly embraced, Wynna promising to return to fetch her in time for supper.

Lenna closed the door and stood frozen for a long minute, looking at her room. It was like she'd stepped back in time, only instead of feeling comforted, she could only think about how much she had lost, how easy it was to believe, lying in that bed, that her mother may come and knock on the door at any time. Easy to believe, but still not true. She would never knock on her door again, and she hadn't been able to say goodbye. She lay down on her bed, but sleep would not claim her.

It was only an hour later that Lenna heard a knock on the door. Lenna opened it to reveal Wynna. The younger girl put a finger to her lips and hurried into the room, closing the door behind her.

"I thought she would follow me around all afternoon," she said with a giggle, then threw her arms around Lenna. "Oh, I am so glad you are home."

Lenna pulled her tighter, welcoming the prickling tears in her eyes. "Yes, my dear, and there is much to talk about."

The two of them climbed on her bed and sat cross-legged, just as they had as children. Wynna wanted to hear everything, about her gowns and the queen and princess.

"Is the queen as beautiful as they say?" she asked.

"She is very beautiful, but she'd be more so if she were happy," Lenna said carefully, schooling her face to hide her opinions.

"Why would she be unhappy? She is queen."

"I haven't figured her out. Cersei is a puzzle without a solution, I fear."

Wynna looked at her with large eyes, a cast of sadness to them.

"She wrote," the girl said quietly.

"You told me."

"Every month, Grandpapa would get a raven with that damned lion seal," she hissed.

"Language, love," Lenna admonished.

"I don't care. Every month, and after he'd read it, Grandpapa would vanish into his study until the next day." The girl's voice had started shaking, whether with rage or sorrow Lenna couldn't tell.

"Did you read them?"

"No. He wouldn't let me, he'd just burn them immediately."

"And he never spoke of what they said?"

"Not a word. Not after the one about your appointment. Lenna, he was terribly upset when he heard you were being guarded by the Hound."

"Really, Wynna, he's not that bad," Lenna sighed. "He looks worse than he is."

"Is he not one of the best killers in Westeros?"

"Hence his position," Lenna replied with a humorless laugh.

"Does it not bother you? Being around someone who could kill you? That has killed before?

"Papa, and your father, and your Uncle Wylis, and almost every man you know over the age of twenty-five has done the same, dear. They have all killed, but is that who they are?" She paused, watching the younger girl struggle with the thought. "Wynna, dear, everyone in King's Landing could kill me. All of them are more likely to do so than he is."

This seemed to subdue the other girl, and Wynna fell into solemn thought, her chin resting on her knees.

As the sun began to sink over the harbor, the two went to stand side by side to watch as the scarlet disc kissed the horizon and began to melt into the sea. Wynna stayed while Lenna dressed. She dug into her chest and brought out a green gown with full sleeves and a square neckline. It was one of her favorites, matching her favorite ribbon.

Without a word, Wynna moved to stand behind Lenne where she sat in front of the glass. The resemblance between them was striking in the mirror. Wynna had some of her own lady-mother's swarthier coloring and her large blue eyes, where Lenna was still pale as milk with those indeterminate Manderly eyes. Wynna was willowy where Lenna was womanly, her hair a rich, ruddy brown to Lenna's near-black. Her niece tenderly ran her hands through the curls they both shared. It was a strange luxury, her niece's hands working in her hair. Wynna carefully combed it free of snarls, knowing better than to try and brush it as the maids in King's Landing had attempted, and then she twisted it expertly in a style Lenna hadn't worn before, let it hang loosely over one shoulder in a thick spiral.

"Is there something you'd like me to add to it? I could loan you some pearls."

"No, this will do," Lenna said, producing the ribbon. "I never was one for much ornamentation."

Wynna carefully ran it through the twist, forming a looping pattern against the dark hair. The gold thread winked in the light of the candle they had lit on the vanity.

"It's starting to fray at the end. Shall I trim it?"

"No," Lenna said quickly. "Tuck the end in and no one will notice."

Wynna did what she was bid, but Lenna could feel her watching her in the mirror.

"Why do you not wish me to cut it?"

"Sentimental reasons, I suppose. Silly ones," Lenna answered, pausing. "It was a gift."

"I can easily guess from whom."

Lenna colored under her niece's gaze. She didn't speak, but nodded.

"An odd friend. It must have been he who sent your last letter for you."

"Why do you say that?"

"I can tell by looking at him. It was a great risk, to circumvent the queen like that, but when he looks at you he looks willing to die for you."

"His job is to protect me, to give his life if necessary," Lenna said evenly.

"Aye, but he looks like he'd hand you the dagger himself. And hold still while you slipped it between his ribs."

"Wynna," she warned.

"Does he love you, Lenna?"

"Wynna, you're talking nonsense." Lenna tried to keep her voice light, to laugh it off. It sounded strangled instead. Her niece was too like her, though, and wouldn't be put off.

"Do you love him?"

Lenna felt her cheeks grow hotter, and she could actually see the flush creep from her chest through her neck and across her face.

"I think very highly of him. He has been a good friend to me."

"He looks ferocious, but looks aren't everything. If a man looked at me like that- well, if I were you, I'd climb him like a tree," Wynna smirked.

"Wynna, you don't even know what that means!" she exclaimed, but then the both of them collapsed into giggles, Wynna waggling her eyebrows lasciviously. _Where is the proper maid now?_ "Oh, I have missed you. Though you were never so wicked before."

"I should hope not, I was a child."

"You are still a child," Lenna said, suddenly serious.

"I'm older than you were when you went to King's Landing."

"Like I said, still a child."

Wynna smirked. She was a lovely girl, and would be a lovelier woman still. Lenna could feel that she wanted to say something else, but her niece took a deep breath and patted her hair.

"All done. If you'd like rouge or kohl I can bring you some. Father disapproves," she said, rolling her eyes.

"No, indeed. I rarely use them, and I wish to be just myself tonight."

Wynna took both her hands, eyes suddenly filled with tears. "We couldn't ask for anything but you."

Sandor X

The bunk he was shown to was more a guest room than a barracks cell. It was twice as large as the one he had in King's Landing, with a bed large enough even for him, hung with woolen drapes to ward of the cold at night. He had a wide window with a view of the sea, and the glass actually opened to let in the breeze. It was positively luxuriant. It made him uncomfortable, so he shucked of his armor and walked the short distance to the bath house to wash off the voyage. He took a long soak in the hot spring, pleased to find soap available, finely milled, not the coarse lard and lye lumps he was used to in King's Landing.

He'd dressed in plain clothes again and debated stretching out on the bed, but he felt like he was going mad. He hadn't properly stretched his legs in a week, let alone hit anything. There wasn't enough time for training, so he decided a wander might do him some good.

Even with his height, once he'd thrown the hood of his cloak over his head, no one paid him a bit of mind. These Northerners were a larger breed, like him. They went bustling about their business with their honest, open faces, the children weaving in and out of streets with reddened cheeks and shouts of laughter.

He walked back down the Castle Stair, trying not to look at the mermaids. They looked like they could be Lenna's sisters, and he needed to clear his head. The pathway was impressive, similar to the Serpentine but more gracious. He followed it back the way they'd come in on horseback, taking in his bustling surroundings.

Near the Seal Gate he found himself in a large square dominated by a fountain featuring a massive merman. He was wielding a triton, though one of the tines had broken off, his beard and hair green with algea, just like the Manderly sigil. The square was teeming with people buying and trading, shouting and laughing, and after a week on a quiet sea, all he wanted was a beer.

He stopped a man selling onions from a handcart.

"Best ale house in the city?" he asked, holding out a copper star.

"By the Wolf's Den. Best black beer in the Seven Kingdoms," the man said with a smile, taking the coin and slipping it into his pocket. "Onion?"

"No, thanks," he replied. "Which way?"

The onion-seller pointed toward an alley. Even as the walls grew closer together, he couldn't help but notice it didn't feel cramped. All of the buildings were constructed of the same white stone, their roofs steep and gray.

 _No wonder she hates King's Landing_ , he thought.

He found the ale house with no trouble, settling at one of the long tables and ordering a pint of beer. It was brought promptly with a terse smile by the barmaid, who quickly pocketed his money and bustled away.

He raised the mug to his mouth and took a long swig. _It is good_.

"Saw her myself, riding up the Castle Stair with that monster beside her. Can't believe she's come home. Can't believe the old man would have her."

His ears pricked up.

"You know how he gets about Lannisters, and to have that particular one in White Harbor…"

"Bet I could take him. Bark must be worse than the bite. 'Sides, why'd they send him if he's their best man? Escorting one little maid-"

"She ain't a little maid no more." The bawdy slant to the words made his blood boil.

"Think she's spyin' for 'em?"

"Nah, she's just the little princess's governess. Tutor. Whatever."

"Never have figured out why they wanted her in the first place. Don't get me wrong, Lady Helenna's as fine as they come, but they never wanted one of our lasses before."

"Her mother was a lady-in-waiting."

"Aye, but she was a Locke, and the queen was a Targaryen, not a Lannister. They've always held water with the King's Landing. Not like ol' Wyman."

"Why is that? Not that I like them, not one bit, but why?"

"Something about before the war, maybe during the Nine Penny Kings? I can't remember. But you know how it is with men like that, they can't even remember what they're avenging after a time."

The conversation turned after that and Clegane lost interest. He felt like the inside of his head was itching. Lenna had told him that her father had fostered at Casterly Rock. He would be the same age as Tywin, and it was likely that he'd fought alongside the Lannisters on whatever campaign they were on during that time. He desperately wished he'd paid more attention to history at that moment. He almost had the connection, but it hovered just out of his reach.

He finished his ale, leaving an extra star or two on the table. He could get used to a place like this, where no one bothered him or even looked twice at him.

When he got back to the New Castle, the guards stood aside to let him pass without comment. Striding back to his room, he wondered what he was supposed to wear. He decided on his armor, for more reasons than one, and called a boy in to fasten the straps. The young man was shaking in his boots. Clegane guessed his reputation had made its rounds in the training yards. He took extra care to speak low to the lad.

He asked a guard which way to the hall and was directed to a large set of ornate doors. The guards posted there opened it and he walked into the Merman's Court.

It was a grand room, though smaller than the hall in King's Landing. It wasn't its size that made it notable, it was the decoration. He had never seen anything like it. The hall at Casterly Rock was ornate, the one in King's Landing similarly ostentatious, but this one was astonishing. There was no fancy stonework or intricate carving, but every visible surface was extraordinary. Under his feet were painted hold-fasts of kelp, undulating and flowing the length of the room as if they were swaying in an underwater current. Peeking between the fronds were starfish and oysters will painted pearls as big as his fist, the barnacled bones of some poor sailor peering out here or there, the eyes of the skulls dark amidst the weeds.

The walls were painted an eerie pale blue-green, the blue-green of the shallows, sharks swimming lazily with their white underbellies and white teeth bared. There was a large mural of a shipwreck, the bark torn open along the side, a monstrous octopus slithering from the shattered hull. Eels peered from around crags of coral, their over-large eyes unblinking. His eyes traveled upward, toward the dark wooden rafters hung with nets. The color of the wall shifted, fading to a sun-pierced blue as he detected the artful undulation of the water's surface. The nets were draped cleverly, supporting all manner of flotsam and jetsam: spiny pink and white conches, golden sea snail shells, great purple clams with creamy interiors, tridents, enormous hooks, harpoons…

"Welcome to the Merman's Court, Clegane."

He turned slowly to see Wyman Manderly standing at the other end of the room by the large dais that supported his cushioned throne. He must have come through the little door behind it, cleverly set into a complicated scene of a kraken and leviathan battling for supremacy, scattering glistening schools of cod and herring between the tall windows.

"It is impressive, my lord," he replied, trying to remember what few manners he had.

"I heard that you went down to the ale house by the Wolf's Den. Best black beer in the Seven Kingdoms."

"So I was told," Clegane replied, clenching his fists. He was almost grateful to Wyman Manderly for firing the warning shot across his bow. He had thought, briefly, that getting the information he was charged with collecting would have been easier than previously planned. If the Lord of White Harbor had already gotten wind of where he'd spent his afternoon, he'd have to come up with something different.

"We don't usually have supper in here," Wyman continued, walking toward him. "But Lenna has always been passing fond of this room. She used to sketch it as a child. She was fascinated with the stories on the walls."

"That isn't surprising," he said, regretting the familiarity of the comment almost at once.

"You spend a great deal of time with my daughter, is that correct?" Manderly was busy inspecting the portrait of a sea turtle, but Clegane knew he was aware of his every breath.

"I am assigned to guard her and the princess Myrcella while they have their lessons, yes."

"Does she like that? The lessons, I mean?" Wyman turned to him with genuine curiosity.

"I believe so. She doesn't complain, my lord."

"No, she never did much in the way of whinging. If she doesn't like a thing, she changes it."

"Not much she can do about the queen's orders," Clegane said, and they both knew what he meant.

"No, there isn't. Nor is there much you can do either."

"My lord?"

"Clegane, I only know you by your reputation, and it isn't wholesome one. I was most displeased when the queen told me it was you that were set to guard her. And now, here you are, one of the most formidable soldiers in Westeros, escorting a maid on a trip home to her loving family. Explain that to me." The Lord of White Harbor had turned to look at him. The old man's eyes were rheumier than his daughters, but they were the same dark mottled green.

"I swore an oath to protect Lady Helenna," he murmured.

"So tell me, then, why is she here?"

"My lord?"

"She wasn't sent here for a visit, Clegane. We both know it. After all this time, Cersei Lannister did not send my daughter, whom she has isolated from me for almost seven years, back to me out of the goodness of her royal heart. Lenna knows it, too, I dare say. She was always smart, my lass. Innocent, but wickedly clever. Now, I do not for an instant believe that my own daughter would spy on me. Not knowingly, though I'm sure they'll take from her what she doesn't even know she's given."

"But you believe that I would spy," Clegane said flatly.

"Aye," the old man replied, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"And you're right," he admitted baldly.

"Because those are your orders, Clegane?"

"Because it is what will keep her safe," he growled.

"Who are you keeping safe?" Wyman Manderly was looking at him with a strange expression of near-tenderness. It made him feel ashamed.

"Your daughter, my lord."

"From whom?" the lord asked quietly.

"Do you really need to ask that, my lord?" Clegane was beginning to feel the stirrings of panic, almost the same as he felt when confronted with Tywin Lannister. This man was shrewd, and far too forward. Tywin would have couched his questions in vague phrasings, but Wyman Manderly seemed to have no qualms holding his feet over the fire in the middle of his great hall with his family due for supper at any moment.

"Tywin," the old man whispered, squeezing his eyes shut as if in pain.

Clegane nodded but couldn't speak.

"What are you supposed to tell him when you return?" Wyman had thrown his head back and put his hands behind his back.

"How many ships you have, how many you can build, and the number of soldiers in your garrison." It slipped out so easily, the betrayal of his master. It was then that he realized he had no master, only a mistress, and she wasn't a Lannister queen. _Anything it takes_.

"Do you need documentation to take with you?" Wyman's voice had taken on a conciliatory and businesslike quality that threw him off footing.

"No, my lord, just the numbers."

Wyman nodded. "So be it. You'll have what you're looking for."

"Why would you tell me?" he demanded, confused and a little angry.

"To take back to Tywin, of course." He paused and looked at the ceiling. "There was a keep that had painted halls like this once. But it was filled with scenes of gold and jewels. Of mines. It is no more."

"Castamere." He'd heard the story as a child, the destruction of House Reyne. The very song he'd made her sing on that long-ago nameday.

"Did you know that she sends a raven, Clegane? Every month?"

Clegane shook his head.

"She does. And she signs it- _he_ signs it- the same way every time. 'Remember the Reynes.'"

Clegane felt the wind leave him.

"Keep her here, don't send her back to them," he whispered. The thought of being separated from her was ripping at him, but if it kept her out of their reach he'd find a way to survive it. He'd lived long before her, he would keep going after.

"You and I both know that cannot be. They may not seek retribution in the short term, but they would in the long course. No, she's actually safer in King's Landing. At least there she has you."

Clegane looked at him intently, not understanding what the man was getting at.

"You swear no oaths, Clegane. You've refused the vows of knighthood again and again, even while your monstrosity of a brother fights in tourneys and goes by Ser. The rapist and murderer of a queen getting all the accolades of an anointed knight, while you..."

Clegane flushed at the mention of Gregor.

"You swore an oath to protect a child and a girl, Sandor Clegane. Cersei Lannister was so gleeful when she wrote me, I could nearly hear her laughing. Stupid chit doesn't even know what this whole thing is about, but she enjoys twisting the knife no matter who it's stuck in. I'm sure she meant for me to be horrified, and I was. Until I thought about it."

"My lord?"

"I don't know that I like you, Clegane, but I think that I trust you. Because she does. Because you were the one who got that letter through to us. You are the friend she spoke of."

"You don't know that. About the letter. Could have been anyone she paid off."

Wyman Manderly cocked an eyebrow at him in the same way his daughter did, the similarity striking enough to make Clegane feel like he was choking. The old man pursed his lips into a smirk. "You make quite an impression on everyone you meet, Hound. Crewmen who take coin to carry messages also take coin to talk about the senders. She didn't pay five golden dragons to get that letter out of King's Landing, but you did. At least, I'm guessing that's what the man meant when he told me it was given to him by a 'giant fucker with a face like the seven hells.'"

Clegane clenched his jaw again, fighting the impulse to laugh. Now he knew where she got it from, that insane tenacity and ability to see through bullshit.

"No, Clegane. She'll not stay here, even though this is where she belongs. But I will, as her father, remind you of your oath. Do an old man a kindness and keep her from what harm you can. I know it cannot be all, not where _they_ are involved."

"Yes, my lord," he said quietly.

"You'll have what you need to pacify them, no sneaking around the quays necessary. Though it may be good for the sake of appearances. There are Lannister eyes in my city besides yours." The old man looked weary, letting out a deep sigh. "Let us put it aside now. My girl is home, and I don't want anything to spoil what little time I may have with her," the old man said, his eyes watery. He patted Clegane on the shoulder as he walked past him, toward the long table that had been laid by the enormous hearth. "No need for that armor, young man. You'll find no foes in White Harbor. Plain clothes unless you're for the training yard, if you please. Makes me nervous to see a longsword winking at the supper table. You have time to change if you run."

Clegane hurried out of the hall as if the hounds of all seven hells were on his heels.

A/N: Thank you again to everyone who has been leaving reviews. I really look forward to them and take them to heart. I won't beg, but I will encourage...part of the reason I've been able to churn this out so quickly is because I want to get it to you all as soon as possible! I know it is a slow burn, and our friends still have a ways to go, but I promise, when it happens it will be worth it (I hope). They just have so much to experience together that I can't limit it to only the romance. I am so happy to hear that so many of you have been enjoying that aspect of it as well. I love writing it, and I love knowing you like reading it.


	14. Chapter 14

Lenna XI

The first supper was a rather tense affair for Lenna. It had been an impulse to ask him to join them for dinner, but one that she only half-regretted. She wanted him there, though she was unsure how her family might react to Sandor. She was even more unsure as to how he might react to them. The Manderlys were an irregular lot, but she felt that he belonged there, not in the mess hall with the guards. Not just as a representative of the Lannisters, her guard, but as her friend.

She knew he lived in the barracks with the other guards in King's Landing, but he was the son of a landed knight. His brother was a knight. He had been asked to take knightly vows more than once, though he had refused each time. While the Cleganes weren't wealthy or powerful, they were still gentry, and it shocked her now to realize that the Lannisters treated him like less than he was. She wondered why he tolerated it, but wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer.

Sandor appeared just after she did, dressed plainly in a green tunic under his leather jerkin and breathing a little heavily. It made her smile to see him out of his armor again, and she hoped very much that it meant he would find some respite in White Harbor as well. He looked younger when he wasn't in his armor, more like the six-and-twenty she knew him to be than the hardened guard he presented to the world. He'd mentioned once that he was five years her elder, and it had surprised her that they were so close in age. She had assumed he was older, just based on his position and bearing. It was sobering to realize that so young a person might have seen enough to make them seem so much more experienced. It also hit her that she didn't even know when his nameday was, though he had taken the trouble to remember hers for the last two years. He'd even bought her a ribbon for each one, and they were the only ones she wore, the green one looped through her hair even now. Maybe being in White Harbor would relax him enough to tell her if she asked.

She wasn't sure why, but she desperately wanted him to like her home, to be as comfortable there as she was. She loved her family all the more for trying to make him feel welcome. Her brothers peppered him with questions as they waited for the first course, which he tolerated, answering politely and with more detail than she was used to hearing from him. He was a plain-spoken man, but it actually seemed to impress Wendel. She hadn't given her brother credit for so much good taste. Wylis, always the more skeptical of the two, didn't seem as swayed, but before the first course was served, the three of them were amiably reminiscing about their time fighting for Robert Baratheon's cause while downing an unbelievable amount of ale. She thought she even heard him laugh, a rare, rough sound that she wished she could hear more often.

Wylla and Wynna were seated on either side of her, both girls excitedly grabbing her hands under the table from time to time, their pleasure her own. Each squeeze brought her back to herself, else she would have thought she'd been transported back in time, or was living a different life. A life where she hadn't been called to King's Landing. It was the mere presence of him at her table that was the only firm evidence that she had, in fact, spent the last six years thousands of miles from home. Oddly, she didn't think she would have traded him.

Her favorite supper had been prepared, oysters and clams and large coldwater shrimp boiled with spices, potatoes, and shallots in a broth. It came out to the tables on great heaping platters with sturdy chunks of bread and pitchers and pitchers of ale. It made her smile to see such simple fare after six years of peacock's tongues, stuffed dates, and carafe upon carafe of Dornish sour. Not that she disliked Dornish sour, it was delicious, but the ale melted perfectly with the buttery broth and the delicate flavor of the seafood in a way a wine would have spoiled. She drank more than she ought, and after two or three pints she was tipsily giggling like the girl she had once been, her nieces dissolving in fits on either side of her as she told stories of the courtiers that made them shriek.

She knew her cheeks were pink with ale by the time the main course ended and they waited on dessert. No seven course meals in White Harbor, not unless it was a feast. Dessert came in the form of toffee pudding studded with raisins and smothered in rum sauce. Lenna felt her eyes prick when she smelled it, trying to surreptitiously wipe her nose on her sleeve before anyone noticed. It smelled like home. It made her throat clench that her family had remembered all of her favorites, even after all this time.

"My lady?" Sandor had turned his attention to her. He'd been avoiding her eye all night. She had been watching him, smirking and easy as he bantered with her brothers. It had been a pleasure to observe him, and for a time they had traded places as she watched him as he had so often watched her.

"I'm fine, Clegane," she said, sniffing, laughing when the tears broached her lids and ran down her cheeks in abundant streams despite her best efforts. She wiped them away with the back of her hand, trying to avoid smearing butter across her cheeks.

"Ignore Lenna," Wendel said with a smirk and a roll of his eyes. "She always cried at everything."

"Indeed," she laughed. "You know the old saying: excess of joy weeps."

Wynna didn't reply, but she did grasp Lenna's hand and squeeze it firmly before pressing it affectionately to her cheek. It was enough to make new tears flow down her face in earnest.

"Such nonsense when there is pudding to be had," Wyman grumbled from his place at the head of the table, a playful smirk on his face. She laughed again through her tears. She didn't need another invitation to tuck in. It seemed like it only took three bites, but mysteriously the entire portion disappeared from her plate.

Afterwards, they retired to the chairs that had been set before the blazing fire. The hearth in the Merman's Court was large enough for her to stand upright in, one of those hallmark features of Northern halls. In the winter months, the chairs would have been brought into the fireplace itself, though now they were at a safe enough distance to keep them warm in the mild chill of the evening but keep them from getting to hot. Lenna sank down in one gratefully, looking for Sandor as she did. He hung back from the group at the edge of the shadow, and in the semi-darkness his eyes found hers. An expression hung across his features like none she'd ever seen before, and she couldn't fathom why he looked so tremendously forlorn.

Wylla and Wynna curled like cats on cushions at her feet, and for a long time no one spoke. It was surreal, being back among her family before their great hearth, the cracking of the logs the only sound that split the silence. It spread like a familiar blanket, snugly enfolding them all. When she looked around her it was like she could peer into each of them: Wylla and Wynna were resting against her, Wynna's cheek on her knee. Both looked peaceful as their father and uncle looked down on them fondly, their eyes flitting to her every once in a while, like they weren't sure she would really be there if they looked for her again. Wendel appeared pensive, staring into the fire, his thumb and forefinger twisting the moustache at the corner of his mouth until it curled up on its own like a scallywag's, deep in thought. Her father had steepled his hands over his enormous belly and was resting his eyes, the occasional report of a snore making her grin.

Then there was Sandor. He sat stiffly in the chair that was furthest from the fire, both of his massive hands spread open on his knees in an imitation of ease. She could see the tendons working beneath his skin, and she noticed for the first time that they were fine and beautiful, like the hands of statues of the Warrior and the Smith in the Sept of Bealor, smooth and strong with grace in their square fingers and long lines. They pressed into the flesh of his thighs with unspoken tension. He had tilted his head forward like he usually did when he didn't want to her to see his face, but she was sure that his eyes were open. They were always watchful.

"Isn't it funny?" Wynna said, finally breaking the silence when she raised her face to Lenna, her chin on her aunt's knee, a little sharp point of pressure that made her smile and think of their childhood. They'd spent so many evenings together like this in front of this hearth. "I'm sure we've all been thinking about what we want to say to each other for years, and now that we can, we aren't saying anything at all."

"Instead of speaking, how about a song, my dear? They often say what we wish to better than we could ourselves," Wyman suggested. He nodded toward a fiddle case propped against the wall. Wynna smiled, rising gracefully and retrieving it, and Lenna's felt a little pang of dismay to realize how much she had missed, how much the girl had grown up. Wynna carefully opened the case, an old, battered one lined in grey velvet, and withdrew the instrument. It, too, was old, with wear on the varnish on the fingerboard and where Wynna's chin would rest, but it was beautiful in the firelight as the girl rosined the bow, the light rippling across the

"I'll play if Lenna sings," she said with a puckish smile. It was something they had done together when they were children and Wynna had begun to learn to play. Lenna grinned as she remembered Wynna's earnest playing of dozens of sour notes, her own voice faltering as together they giggle and muddled through the old Northern songs their mother loved.

"Of course," Lenna replied, her eyes shining.

"One of the old ones, that we used to play," Wynna said. "You'll know it when I start."

The younger girl looked at her aunt with mischief in her eyes, tucking the instrument beneath her chin. She tuned it quickly, and it was evident to Lenna that the faltering girl had grown into an artist. She bounced the bow across the strings a few times, the mellow sounds filling the Merman's Court like candlelight, dropping slow and melodious.

The girl took a deep breath, then began playing with such sweetness that Lenna nearly missed her entrance. But when it came, the words sprang from her lips with barely a thought behind them, the old lyrics spilling from the recesses of her memory like she'd sung them the day before.

 _My heart is sair-I dare na_ _tell,_

 _My heart is sair_ _for Somebody;_

 _I could wake a winter night_

 _For the sake o' Somebody._

 _O-hon! for Somebody!_

 _O-hey! for Somebody!_

 _I could range the world around,_

 _For the sake o' Somebody._

 _Ye Powers that smile on virtuous love,_

 _O, sweetly smile on Somebody!_

 _Frae_ _ilka danger keep him free,_

 _And send me safe my Somebody!_

 _O-hon! for Somebody!_

 _O-hey! for Somebody!_

 _I wad do-what wad_ _I not?_

 _For the sake o'_ _Somebody._

Lenna's throat felt tight as she finished the last phrase, grateful that Wynna was filling the time with a lovely variation of her own devising. She hadn't thought about that song in years, the lyrics never meaning much to her anyway. Now, they resonated with something dark and deep, something that made her chest feel tight and sore. _My heart is sair_ , she thought ruefully. She hoped her family thought her gleaming eyes were brought on by memories of singing that song with Wynna in their childhood, instead of their true source.

She could not, under any circumstances, look at Sandor Clegane. For all the time she'd been singing, gray eyes hung in her mind, and they made her feel like her chest was host to a hot coal, scorching her from the inside. She recalled Wynna's earlier questions, and how queasy they had made her feel.

She had never let herself dwell on the possibility that Sandor Clegane could care for her, or she for him, beyond the realm of their friendship. It was already a peculiar and delicate thing, a frail fledgling of a feeling, and she was wary of ascribing more weight to it lest it shatter. She couldn't bear the thought of losing him by some misstep or an ill-timed word. Especially as she did not know exactly what the feeling meant. She wished she did.

Silence had fallen again with the last graceful sounds from Wynna's bow. Lenna made herself look at the girl and smile, disconcerted to see her niece looking back at her with strange, almost sorrowing, knowledge in her eyes.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Sandor rise from his chair, the legs scraping against the stone floor with a screech.

"Thank you for your hospitality, my lord, but I would beg my leave," he said quietly, looking only at Wyman. He had drawn himself up to his full height, his hands rolled into fists, the knuckles and tendons stretched pale even in the firelight.

The old man looked back at him with a faint smile. "Of course, Clegane. You both must be exhausted. Wynna, Wylla, time for bed, my dears."

"I'll see them back. And Lady Helenna," Clegane offered.

"The girls, yes, and with my thanks. I would speak with Lenna before she goes."

"My orders-" Clegane began, still only addressing her father.

"She will be safe with me and her brothers, Clegane. Your sense of duty does you honor," Wyman responded with a smile. The two girls had risen to stand with him, Wylla looking rather put out, and he looked over at Lenna at last.

"Goodnight, Clegane," she said softly. _Goodnight, Sandor._

""Night," he replied, swallowing heavily, following the Manderly sisters out of the hall.

Wyman settled back into his chair his hands laced across his belly again.

"I am not sure how you acquired such a guard dog, my dear, but I can't say that I disapprove entirely."

"Don't call him that, Papa," she admonished gently.

"It bothers you, to hear him called a dog?"

"It would bother me if it were you being called such, too," she replied.

"Remarkable fellow. Honest."

"To a fault, sometimes," she smiled.

"Lenna, do you know why you're here?" Wyman asked, getting straight to the point. Lenna smiled a little, basking in her father's old ways.

"I assumed it was because I was going to be mined for information on my return," she answered truthfully. "I think Clegane knows more than he wants to tell me. I tried to make him-"

"No, he would never. Not if he felt it would put you at risk. Do you know why he was sent with you? Strange choice of escort for a lady."

Lenna shook her head. She had her suspicions, but Sandor wouldn't confirm them either way.

"He was sent to gather very specific information," Wyman continued.

Lenna's brow furrowed. "What kind of information?"

"The extent of my power here, my ships and garrison. And my potential as a ship-builder."

"Why would Cersei-"

"Never mistake who it is who is making the decisions and giving the orders, my dear."

"Then why would Tywin want to know that? We are at peace, and have been-"

"Not long enough. You were born before the Rebellion, child, we were at war through your earliest years. Tywin Lannister is nothing if not a planner."

"What does he want with us?"

"I can't tell, but everything these past six years points to some plot or other. And sending you here- I don't know what to make of it. Neither does your Clegane."

"How do you know all of this?"

Wyman looked at her with a half-smile. "Clegane told me."

Lenna looked at her father in open confusion.

"I asked him an honest question. He gave me an honest answer."

"What did you tell him?" she asked breathlessly.

"That he'd have the information he needed before you travel back to King's Landing."

Lenna drew in a deep breath.

"Papa, I've been thinking-"

"You're going back, Lenna," her father said with finality. Her brothers, who had been standing a little apart as they listened to their conversation, both turned sharply.

"If she wants to stay, let her. What are they going to do?" Wendel asked. He was always the brasher of the two.

"I don't want to imagine what they would do," Wyman replied with steel in his voice. He turned his gaze back to Lenna. "I don't want to lose you again, child. These last six years have been so long without you. But there is no other way to keep us all on the right side of them. Don't you see that?"

Lenna couldn't muster a response of any kind.

"Let us enjoy our time together, shall we? It was such a treat to hear your voice tonight. You and Wynna always were such a pair."

Lenna smiled as best she could. She was suddenly so tired she could barely hold her head up.

"To bed, child. We'll have more talk and songs on the morrow. Of a pleasanter persuasion, I hope," her father said, making to rise. She waved her hand and went to him, kissing him on the forehead, feeling her heart expand painfully as she did so. She proceeded to kiss her brother's whiskery cheeks and press their hands before she left the hall.

Instead of making her way to her room, her feet took her to the ramparts. She had forgotten how dark it could be in White Harbor, how clear and bright the stars were, how many of them she could see scattered across the black vastness of the cold sky.

"You aren't supposed to be here."

She smiled into the night, not bothering to turn when she heard his raspy voice. "This is my home. It is exactly where I am supposed to be."

He came to stand beside her, just a hand's-breadth away. They stood for quite some time, Lenna enjoying the chill evening breeze in her face and the warmth of the man standing beside her.

"You made quite an impression on my father," she said. "He told me everything."

He stiffened beside her, drawing a little away. When she looked up at him, she could see shame on his features, even in the dim light.

"I did not want-" he ground out, but she turned toward him and laid a hand on his elbow to stop him.

"I know. But you told him the truth. He likes you for it," Lenna smiled. "I'm glad. I'd have them all like you."

"Why?"

"Because I like you," she said quietly. It was harder to say than she anticipated, and she almost tripped over it. "Because you are my friend."

He smiled his irregular smile, and his gray eyes recovered some of their brightness.

"You looked troubled earlier," she said, looking back over the water.

"Because you are happy."

"You were sad because I was happy? That doesn't make any sense," she laughed, throwing him a sideways smirk.

"It will be hard for you to leave again."

"Aye," she replied, feeling it press on her like a weight. "It will be hard. But I will have you."

He came a little closer, his hands resting on the wall so close to hers that it would have taken the merest movement of her fingers or hers and they would have been touching. She smiled to see her pale little hand next to his rough brown one, and she wished she had the courage to reach over and take it in hers. Instead, they stood together under the stars with the wind in their faces, side by side but as far away from each other as if the Narrow Sea lay between them.

Sandor XI

He'd had to force himself to see her back to her room that first night. He would have gladly stayed there on that rampart until dawn if it meant he'd been standing with her, the warmth of her body next to his warming his side and making chills run down his spine.

But he had torn himself away, and walked with her to her chamber door. She'd turned her face up to his and taken his hand, squeezing it and looking like she wanted to say something before bidding him goodnight and leaving him alone in the passageway. He wondered what it was. When he'd found his bed at last, drawing those thick curtains around him, he'd dreamt of standing on the wall with her, this time her slender hand in his.

It was tame as far as dreams of her went, and that was what had disturbed him most. He rose early the next morning and decided to get his mind off it with a spell in the training yard. It was the best way to keep him from thinking ridiculous thoughts about things that could never be.

When he arrived at the training yards, a young squire had helped him tighten the straps of his armor. In that time, the captain of the city guard had arrived. He was a strapping man with a shock of red hair. Approaching Sandor like it had been his intention in coming, he stuck out a hand to shake before offering his services. Sandor sized him up and decided to accept. He did want to get his hands on a trident, after all.

It took Sandor all of an hour to figure the trident out. It was the net he was having difficulty with. He and the captain had been at it for a while, and they were both sweaty, but Sandor was bound and determined that he was going to win. It ignited a devilish competition in his blood, the thought of besting the man at his own weapon.

It was quite a fight. The other man was smaller than him, a bit nimbler, and much better at anticipating where the net would land. It seemed strange to Clegane, using a net as an off-hand weapon, but it only took being felled once to see the appeal. He was sweating profusely, even in the cold sun. He'd thrown his helm off earlier, and now his hair was plastered to his face as he parried and thrust and blocked the other man's attempts. At last, he was able to throw the net in just such a way to use the weights attached to the edges to serve as counterweights, wrapping around his opponent's ankles. The captain tripped over his feet and Sandor wedged the tines of the trident around his short sword, twisting it until the other man was forced to drop it, then coming to stand over him with the blunted trident pressed against his chest.

"Well done, Clegane!" the man exclaimed from his prone position, breathing heavily with exertion as a wide smile split his face. "Damn, but that reputation is well-deserved."

He was about to make a retort when heard the sound a single person clapping from behind him. He turned to see her standing at the gallery rail, a wide smile on her face and an eyebrow raised.

"Have you ever seen anything like it, my lady?" the captain called, getting to his feet and bowing slightly.

"No, I can't say that I have," she replied.

"After an hour of training, beaten with my own weapon. If my lady will excuse us, I believe I owe Clegane here a pint of our best ale."

"Of course," she laughed. "Have fun."

He wanted to growl when she smirked at him again.

The captain kept up a steady stream of conversation, barraging him with questions about his life in King's Landing, the structure of the guard, the training they received. He related what he felt he could, knowing in his gut that this man was merely curious. He seemed to hold Sandor in rather high regard, asking his advice on how to best train new recruits, how to delegate duties among the men who weren't, perhaps, as adept at trident-fighting as he was.

They returned to the ale-house where he'd spent the previous afternoon. He noted quickly that the barkeep met his eye and nodded, recognizing him from the day before. He wondered if he was the one who had tipped Wyman Manderly off, or perhaps it was the onion seller, whom he passed in the square again. He supposed it made little difference, but he was curious. It impressed him that he, of all people, hadn't noticed them watching.

The captain eventually decided to go upstairs with one of the bawds, Clegane declining to do the same. He paid the tab at the bar, knowing it would fluster the other man, and pulled his hood up as he left, nodding to the barkeep as he left.

He wandered down to the quay, along the wharf and then toward the garrison. Wyman Manderly had more or less encouraged him to at least look like he was gathering information, just so word would reach the Lannisters through their informants. He supposed he shouldn't be surprised that Manderly was well aware that the Lannisters already had eyes in city. He was quite impressed with how perceptive the lot of them seemed to be.

He could have sworn that the elder of the girls, Wynna, had chosen that song for her aunt to sing on purpose. Since their first encounter, when the girl had looked at him with the same clear-sighted regard as Lenna once had, he believed that she saw more than he wanted her to. Last night had been proof, when she had taken up her bow and pulled that song out of her beloved aunt.

He didn't feel like he belonged in the tight family circle, though he supposed in some ways he was grateful. Cersei Lannister certainly never invited him to sit with them. These Manderlys treated him as if he were some guest rather than a guard. He didn't quite know what to make of it as he sat in that chair by their hearth, as far from the roaring fire as he could manage.

When the first line had poured from her throat, the hands on his thighs clenched, his fingers biting into his own flesh. _How the fuck does she manage to do that_? he'd thought, watching through the convenient fall of his hair. _My heart is sair...I could range the world around…I wad do-what wad I not? For the sake o' Somebody._

His eyes had been riveted on Lenna's face. She looked so intent, such a bittersweet expression on her face, almost like she believed what she was saying. It made his stomach fall, wondering who she was thinking about. Wishing it was him.

When he looked at the girl with the fiddle, she'd been looking back at him rather than attending to her bow. She didn't need to, and a small smile had appeared on her face as she watched him, catching him as his gaze slid from Lenna to hers. It was a self-satisfied smile that made his gut seize.

"Help you, ser?"

A skinny guard was smiling at him. It brought him immediately back to the present, all thoughts of songs and heartache out of his head. The man - boy- was young, no more than eighteen, his face still a bit pimply. Sandor went on alert, the slightest hint of a smile curling on the scarred side of his face.

It didn't take long to make him squeak. He barely twisted the lad's arm behind his back before all he wanted was laid at his feet. If he'd had to gather this information himself, he would have found it easily. It almost disappointed him.

It also disturbed him. It shouldn't have been so easy, and he wondered if the boy were faithless, feckless, or already in Lannister employ. He wondered if the information was even accurate.

There was only one way to find out.

He wended his way back up the Castle Stair, past all the damned mermaid's and their sphinx-like smiles, and walked past the guards into the family quarters in the New Castle. He wondered who had given the order not to stop him, at least ask him his business, thinking it an ill-advised show of trust. Lenna may trust him, but her father and brothers had no reason to.

 _No, they simply trust her._

He strode up the Wyman Manderly's study and knocked sharply, turning the handle when the old man gruffly bade him enter.

He didn't get far through the door. She was seated on the wide ledge of her father's window casement, her knees drawn up and her feet bare. Her slippers were on the floor, laying helter-skelter like she'd just kicked them off. A book was propped up on her thighs, but she wasn't reading, one arm wrapped about her torso as she looked out the window. The harbor breeze was playing in the curls that had escaped from her braid, fluttering about her face, caressing her neck like he wished to do. The braid was interwoven with his gray ribbon, and he looked greedily at the picture she made, lovely and pale and serene with the sea behind her in one vast stretch of vacillating grays and blues.

He could have stood there indefinitely, not feasting his eyes so much as resting, but Wyman Manderly must have noticed where his gaze tended.

"Yes, Clegane?"

He turned to look at Manderly, a jab of shame striking him when he saw the serious and knowing expression in the old lord's eyes.

"My lord, I have come from the harbor."

"Yes?"

"You have a rat, my lord. And I made him squeak."

Manderly's mouth quirked. "Come to determine if he told the truth?"

"Aye, and if he did, to tell you so."

"Have you turned him into a Manderly spy, Papa?" she said with a playful smile. Her lips, plump and pink, were parted in a merry grin, like it was some good joke.

"Of a kind," Manderly replied. "Tell us, then, Clegane."

So he did. He told Manderly about the guard, the easy way in which he'd been able to compel the boy to tell him there were two thousand garrisoned soldiers, as well as another fifteen bannermen with their own armies within a days ride of the city. He told him how the lad had told him the contents of the armory, and even offered to draw him a map.

Wyman stroked his white goatee thoughtfully.

"All true," he said at last. "I wonder that Tywin bothered to send you at all."

"As do I, my lord," he said lowly, looking to Lenna.

"Of course, I gave up trying to understand Tywin many years ago. Perhaps," he paused, looking at his daughter, "perhaps it's time to let someone else try."

"Papa?"

"You told me, lass, that Tywin told you that I was fostered at Casterly Rock, that we grew up together."

"Yes, he did."

"It is strange that you haven't asked me about it, child," he said softly. "You were always too curious for your own good."

"I can go, my lord," Sandor said, uncomfortable with how the conversation had shifted, the intimacy between father and daughter.

"No, Clegane, stay," the old lord said. "Sit."

Sandor didn't want to sit, but he did as he was told, folding himself up into the stiff-backed chair in front of Manderly's desk.

Manderly rose and poured them each a mug of ale.

"Best be comfortable. This may take a while," he said, wryly raising his mug in a toast and downing the lot in one swallow.

A/N: Thank you for all of the kind words! I love to hear from you all!


	15. Chapter 15

Lenna XII

She'd never seen her father toss back ale like that before. He had filled his mug to the brim and then drunk the entire contents without pausing for a breath. It wasn't like him, and it worried her. He was a man who loved a drink, but he savored it. His goal was never drunkenness, so when he returned to pour himself yet another she felt her sense of foreboding increase ten-fold.

Wyman Manderly didn't sit, but rather he paced, as she often did, up and down the length of the room, his eyes focused on some point in the middle-distance, or on something years in the past. She watched him closely, taking in every detail as he clearly battled with himself. What she found dismayed her. As she looked at him, she realized how much he had aged in the six, almost seven, years she had been away from home. He had always been a large man, but now he was much stouter than before, with deep bags under his eyes and ponderous jowls, the handsome man he'd once been a frail skeleton within the oversized frame. Add to this a contrary sort of delicacy, especially in the fine wrinkles around his eyes, and she found him very much changed. He had been a vital man when she left, still strong and boisterous, but standing before her now was an old man. A weary old man.

He turned to look at her, his eyes tired and a faint smile lifting the ends of his moustache. He reached a hand up, twisting the white bristles between a thumb and forefinger. It was the same gesture Wendel and Wylis both made when they were thinking, when they were hesitant. It might have made her smile to notice how it was shared between them if she didn't have such a lump of dread weighing in her belly.

"I was sent as a ward to Casterly Rock when I was eight. It was a tremendous honor," he began. His voice was low, almost conspiratorial, like he was telling a story. "Our family was originally from down that way, in the Reach, you know. Not terribly far from Lannisport and just upstream of Highgarden. Our seat was Dunstonbury, on the banks of the Mander, which I saw as a young man. That river is our namesake, or we are the river's, no one can really tell for sure. We have always been deft administrators, it seems, something the long-ago Gardener kings grew wary of, and which our Peake foes exploited to be rid of us. We were expelled, for what I cannot say, but almost a thousand years ago. No one remembers what we did, or didn't do, and I suppose it doesn't really matter now, dow it?

Friendless, in fear of our lives, we Manderlys travelled North. The Starks took us in and gave us the Wolf's Den. They were building their own kingdom, and we were useful. We have always been capable as well as cultured, and all they did was require us to swear an oath to them as their bannermen. In return, they gave over control of the White Knife to us. We have obviously prospered in the interim."

Wyman indicated the room, the Castle, the city itself with a broad sweep of his mug. Not a drop of ale spilled, and he drank deeply again, a grin playing about his mouth. Lenna didn't return it, and her father's face went slack and tired again.

"The Lannisters are so like us in many ways that it made sense to foster me with them," he continued quietly. "They are rich, powerful, in command of one of the largest cities in the Seven Kingdoms, and it's a port to boot. It was, and still is, the fashion to send sons off to learn the ways of things from men other than their fathers. Supposed to give them clearer heads, and foster alliances. Just as sending ladies off to be maids-in-waiting is supposed to help them master the skills they will need as wives and mothers of the great lords."

Lenna flicked her gaze to her father again, finding him looking at her with regret. Perhaps they both felt that any alliance for her was beyond their reach at this point. She was twenty-one, older for a woman of her birth to remain unwed, and she doubted the queen would release her into marriage while the princess was still so young. Not that she would consent to one.

"So, I grew up alongside Tywin Lannister, though he is two years my junior," he continued, his eyes grown far off again. "Lannisters were, of course, too good to foster their sons or daughters with _lesser_ houses. That said, Tywin and I were friends. Very good friends, indeed. He was always a bit mirthless, but I made up for that in spades, and for our growing up years we were as inseparable and as different as Wynna and Wylla.

"I loved him like a brother, having none of my own," he said softly. Lenna glanced to Sandor and found him looking at her father with the same feeling of shock on his features. She knew her mouth had fallen slightly open, and she made an effort to close it. She couldn't imagine her father and Tywin Lannister in the same room, let alone close as brothers.

"Of course, things change. I believe Tywin began to hate me the moment I laid eyes on your mother, my dear. Adalyn Locke. He had no designs on her himself, no, Tywin only ever wanted his cousin. Joanna. She was your mother's dearest friend in King's Landing. They both served Rhaella Targaryen, and Joanna brought her to Lannisport for a festival. I don't remember which one. The problem lay in the fact that Tytos was in talks with my father to betrothe Tywin's sister, Genna, to me."

"Genna Frey?" Lenna blurted out. "You were to marry Genna Frey?"

"It never went beyond negotiations. I broke no promises when I married your mother," her father said hesitantly. "Tywin, of course, greatly supported a match with his sister. Marry his favorite sister to his best friend, what more could he want? Add to that, it would unite two of the five great cities and bring in imports from the Narrow Sea and the Sunset Sea. Together, we'd have encircled the continent, more or less. Imagine the power, I know he did.

"But then I met your mother, and the talks broke down. Tywin didn't complain at the time, insisted he understood, he loved Joanna after all, he knew my predicament. But I knew he was angry. He wasn't used to not getting his way. It was Joanna that assuaged him, and he turned the blame on Genna herself. He had everything arranged to his liking, and it was spoiled. If she'd managed make me love her, it wouldn't have happened in Tywin's mind. So, he blamed her, the poor girl."

"I'm not sure I can muster too much pity for Genna Frey," Lenna said with an archly raised brow and a purse of her lips. "She was always horrible to me." Lenna thought of all the banquets where they'd met in her childhood. Genna Frey always had an unkind word concealed in her endless chatter for Lenna, whether it was about her adolescent skin or the size of her waist. She was like a jellyfish, stoutly floating along looking innocuous, then out of nowhere a sharp zing of pain as she attacked without warning or provocation. Lenna disliked very few people at that age, and Genna Frey was one of them.

"I'm sure I believe you," Wyman said. "After that, things became a little stilted between us. But not at all bitter. No, that came later."

"The Reynes," Sandor said. Lenna looked at him sharply, having almost entirely forgotten he was there. He was looking at her father intently, intelligent gray eyes watching the lord for his reaction. It was clear to her that he knew something she did not, that the two of them had talked. Again, she wondered what all was said when he told her father he'd been sent as a spy. It clearly went beyond the information he was tasked with gathering.

"Aye," Wyman sighed, closing his eyes, the wrinkles of his face cast into sharp relief by the afternoon sun through the window. "The Reynes."

Lenna shuddered, drawing her shawl around her shoulders. It was an old one she found in the chest at the foot of her bed, dark gray and soft, but now it did nothing to warm her. The mention of the name made her feel a chill down to her bones, like she'd been caught on the strand in a winter's fog, damp and freezing and still.

"They owed him gold," Sandor said, a hint of derision in his voice. "Quite a bit of it, for all their mines."

"They did, Clegane, and I never said that nothing should have been done. In fact, I agreed with Tywin in that regard. His father was terrible with money, and he was ruining the family. My most valuable lessons in Casterly Rock weren't on how to properly administer a city, but on what _not_ to do. Tytos was vain and brash and a spendthrift. He lent that money to the Reynes while his most able manager, Tywin, was off with me fighting against the Ninepenny Kings.

"I was engaged to your mother by then. She waited for me to come back, gods bless her. We were off on that campaign most of a year. When we came back, Tywin found the coffers near empty, and he did the sensible thing. He called in the debts.

Her father once again got that far-away look, but his face was also drawn and pained, like dredging up the memories were physically taxing him.

"The Reynes and the Lannisters and the Tarbecks...that's a story it would take weeks to tell, and it went back at least a generation. It was a horrible muddle, what warring greed and slander did to those families. Certainly no love lost between them, despite their intermarrying. When Tywin called in the debts, Roger and Reynard Reyne laughed and refused. Tywin called them in, as was his right. They again refused. There was no other word for it by then but rebellion."

"Lord Tywin had a duty and a right to take back what was his and protect his territory against rebels," Sandor said lowly. Lenna was taken aback by the hardness in his voice. "To fail to do so would have put the people under his protection at risk."

"Of course, Clegane, you are right. But," Wyman paused, "he took it too damn far."

"He routed out those who opposed him," Sandor protested.

A momentary wave of fear hit Lenna like a stone to her breast-bone. Sandor's face was drawn in indignation, like he was growing angry that her father was even daring to question Tywin Lannister, his treatment of the Reyne's those many years before.

"Yes, he did, but it wasn't just those who wielded the power, Clegane. He took out the women and the children, too. It started with the Tarbecks. He wiped them out, including Lady Ellyn. Should Tywin ever decide to call me to account, should my girls die for it?"

Sandor's brow furrowed, and she could see his trouble in his eyes. "But Lady Ellyn-"

"Lady Ellyn was still a high born woman, and the way she was put to the sword was unpardonable. It was against our ways." Manderly looked tired, rubbing his temple with his free hand, taking another sip of ale, pressing his tongue against his teeth as if it tasted bitter. "But, I held my tongue."

"Did he look to you, Papa?" Lenna asked, wondering if her father had not played a greater role than he'd ever let on.

"Of course," he replied. "I went to him immediately, leaving your mother almost ready to give birth to Wylis. I rode south with a small company to Casterly Rock, listened to him rant and rage. And I heard him, and then I counseled him to be merciful, but Tywin had gotten a taste for carnage in the War. One I didn't share."

"But you fought the Ninepenny Kings, and again in Robert's Rebellion," Sandor said, lack of understanding written clearly across his face. He was incredulous. "You know it is necessary."

"Aye, and I was proud to fight. But doing one's duty and enjoying it for the sake of bloodshed are two different things. Roger and Reynard tried to stand against him, but they were defeated. They took their households, even the servants, to shelter in the mines beneath the castle. It was always their best defense, those rocky passageways beneath Castamere. After they were secure, safe, Roger and Reynard came to talk terms, ready to surrender."

"He refused to hear them," Lenna said breathlessly.

Wyman closed his eyes and nodded. "I was there, I tried to get Tywin to listen to reason. It would be one thing to execute Roger and Reynard, and he should have. It was his right. They were his bannermen and they rose up against him. He absolutely should have taken their traitorous heads, but the smallfolk-"

"He killed them all," Lenna said, remembering the song.

"He blocked the entrances and diverted the stream. It poured into the mines. They all drowned. Every last man, woman, and child, and it wasn't a swift death. I could only think about how they all knew what was coming. It took days for the caverns to fill. He drowned them down there in the dark with no escape, scrambling away from the waters until there was nowhere left to go. I can't bear to think of it, not even now," Wyman said, and there were tears welling in his rheumy eyes. "And it was so silent. Midsummer, beautiful blue skies. He turned the whole place into a giant tomb, a place that had once been so beautiful. He torched the keep, and the fires burned for a week, blocking out the sun. Before he was done, it was all gone."

"And then what happened?" Sandor asked, the words mimicking a child eager for a story, but his tone doleful.

"We argued bitterly - violently- and I left. His last words to me, having called me a traitor and a back-biter for not supporting him, I'll never forget. 'Remember the Reynes.' As if I had a choice. We haven't spoken since."

"And she signs the ravens with it," Sandor murmured, his brow troubled.

"Aye," Wyman replied. "Every month, lass. She sends a raven and signs it with his words. I'm sure she doesn't know how meaningful, how dreadful, those words truly are. To me."

Lenna looked at her father in horror. As much as Tywin had scared her before, she hadn't ever dreamed him capable of such absolute cruelty. It made her skin crawl to remember talking with him in the library at the Red Keep, the way he smiled at her and bent over her hand. The respect with which he'd treated her.

"And you will send her back," Sandor growled, his eyes narrowed dangerously. Lenna looked worriedly between them, on unsure footing as they faced off like to two angry dogs.

"Aye, and you will guard her," Wyman returned, his voice no longer that of a genial host, but that of a powerful lord issuing a command.

Sandor XII

His brain was a furnace. He'd heard the story since he was a child, always so sure that the Lannisters were in the right, admiring their resolve, their ability to take and keep what was theirs. He'd grown up in the shadow of Casterly Rock, his family's humble existence relying on them. His father never let them forget what they were, that their grandfather had acquired their sound little keep and their lands because of his loyalty to them, because he was so like the dogs he bred and trained for them.

They were trained to be like dogs for them, too. He'd exemplified it for his whole career, from the age of twelve until just the day before. But, like a dog, his allegiance could only stand so much. Kindness spoke more powerfully than violence, a caress here or there more potent than beatings, and now he knew that they were more or less holding her as a hostage, that she was being used as some perverse bargaining chip against her father to settle an old score, the Hound was turning.

"So that's why they brought her in the first place," he rasped, looking at Manderly. "To put the screws to you."

"That is my nearest guess. That, and to make sure that when the war comes that they have the power of White Harbor behind them in the North."

"The war?" Lenna burst out. "There is no war, we've been at peace for years."

"Not long enough. You remember the Rebellion, lass. It didn't touch you as it could have. Your brothers and I all came back alive and whole. It was not that way for everyone. Robert has only sat the throne for thirteen years. He overthrew a long dynasty. His reign is nothing in comparison," her father said gravely. "Something is coming. I don't know what. I don't know who we will be fighting, but it's coming."

"Aye," Sandor replied. He'd felt it, too. Even before they'd been sent to White Harbor, but now his suspicions were confirmed. The information he was supposed to gather sounded like war preparations, now he felt that they most definitely were. It may be months away, even years, but it was coming. "Surely it is safer for Lady Helenna to remain here if war is coming."

"Lenna, my dear, where is the safest place in a hurricane?" Wyman asked, looking at his daughter. Sandor was bewildered. _What the fuck does a hurricane have to do with a war?_

"The eye," she whispered. Her lips had gone white.

"I don't understand," Sandor bit out.

"Have you ever been in a hurricane, Clegane?" Manderly asked.

"No, my lord," he replied. He'd heard of them, knew they sometimes hit King's Landing, but they usually spent themselves in the Stormlands.

"They are deadly powerful storms. Sometimes they make it all the way up here, bouncing like a child's ball between us and Essos, right up the Narrow Sea. One hit us when Lenna was just a child. Do you remember?"

"Yes," she replied quietly, her brow knitting together as she remembered. She looked to Sandor and held his gaze with hers. "The winds ripped the banners off the ramparts, tore them to shreds. It lifted tiles from the roofs of the houses in the city, shattering them like glass, picking up barrels and carts and flinging them about like toys. One struck the merman in Fishfoot Yard, breaking his trident. It was never repaired, as a reminder. People died," she said, her voice trailing off. "The water rose so high it was six feet deep beyond the wharf. We watched the waves from the walls at the beginning, then you had us huddled in the lower parts of the castle, near the passageway to the Wolf's Den."

"And in the middle of the storm, what did we do?"

"We went into the eye, Papa," she replied quietly. "It was like a fine midsummer day, few clouds overhead, bright blue skies. It was _warm_."

"And?"

"And we could see the stormwall looming, coming toward us. Black and roiling and flecked with lightning."

"Aye, but as long as we were in the eye there were no winds, not rains."

"I understand, Papa," she said. She seemed greatly troubled, wringing her hands as she suddenly rose from her seat. "If you will both excuse me."

She slipped her little white feet into her slippers, not meeting either man's eye. He couldn't help but follow her with his gaze as she left. The way she held herself, so consciously upright and poised, reminded him of the day the news of her mother's death had arrived. He knew that she was working very hard to keep herself calm, and he wondered if she'd manage it this time. He doubted it, a tight stab of dismay slicing through his chest, knowing that as free as he was to walk this castle, he still couldn't go to her as he wished.

He understood Manderly's point. He didn't want to, and wanted to admit he did even less, but he understood. She was safest in the midst of the Lannisters, looking useful, pleasing, and a buffer between them and her family. She was safest in the place she would be the most miserable. The traitorous part of him that had feared being separated from her rejoiced, even while the better part of him raged like a bull at the injustice of it.

He doubted very much that the Lannisters would rain destruction on House Manderly for keeping her, but he knew that in the very least she occupied a privileged place in King's Landing as Myrcella's tutor. Cersei even liked the girl, had as much affection for her as she was capable of feeling for someone not born into her clan. Even Tywin seemed to have a grudging respect, even warmth for her. As long as they both continued to play their parts and do their duty, they could weather the storm. It was something he'd been doing for years, talking his way around the things he had done for their service, the men he had killed and maimed. It had been easy for him, and he'd done it unthinkingly. How often in the alehouses had he boasted that killing was the sweetest thing in a man's life? He enjoyed it. This was probably the first time he'd ever thought twice about it.

"What will you do if he calls you?" Sandor demanded, looking at Manderly. The old man was warming his hands before his study's little fireplace.

"That I cannot answer, not right now."

"But you will provide for her."

"I already have," he replied, turning to look at Sandor. "Or, rather, they already have."

Sandor looked at him flatly.

"You, Clegane," Wyman said quietly. "You'll let no harm come to my girl."

"I told you before. I took a vow," Sandor said, so angry his voice shook with it.

"Yes. Yes, you did. And you'll keep it." It wasn't a command, it was an entreaty. Wyman Manderly was once again a tired man who missed his daughter.

"Aye, my lord," he replied, feeling chastened.

Wyman Manderly looked strained and old, his fat jowls sagging against his chest as he stood with his hands clasped behind his back, his shoulders stooped.

"I'll leave you, my lord," he said, rising.

He stumbled out of the study and found himself walking the ramparts aimlessly. An hour or two passed, and he was not closer to peace than he had been when he started. He was so preoccupied with his thoughts that he nearly tripped over Wendel Manderly without seeing him.

"Clegane!" he exclaimed. "Wouldn't think you'd be for strolling on the walls."

"Needed to clear my head," he replied. Wendel looked at him with his head tilted to one side.

"Father has spilled all, I see. To Lenna, too?" His face was almost jaunty, and it turned his stomach.

Sandor nodded.

"Just as well. Better that you both know," he said matter-of-factly.

"How long have you known?" He knew he was snarling, and he didn't much care. Manderly didn't look the least bit intimidated.

"Always," he replied. "I was born right after it all happened, and he wasn't so quiet about it when I was a lad. He always wanted to protect our Lenna though. We all do."

"Bloody fine job you've done, too," Sandor growled. Instead of angry, like other lordlings might be, Wendel had the grace to look chastened. Sandor felt immediately ashamed.

"You're right, Clegane. We've let other men do our duty." The words were soft, but he left no doubt of his meaning by raising his eyes to meet Sandor's. These Manderlys were an honest and self-effacing group. He wondered how they had managed to survive this far.

The older man excused himself, extracting a promise of a game of cards after supper, and Sandor watched him go with relief.

"Clegane."

Sandor turned, not even trying to hide the annoyance on his face. The other man looked back at him sheepishly. There was a hesitance about his manner that made Sandor curious, like he was about to do something he thought he might regret.

"My sister went to the Sept. Maybe you could fetch her, see her safely back?" he asked. Sandor's brow furrowed with bemusement. "She'll be in the crypts."

The last sentence was uttered gravely and slowly, and Clegane knew at once why he'd been so slow to speak. Wendel looked back at him imploringly, like he was asking him to be gentle, like he knew he could be so. A wave of white-hot awareness crashed over him. _These Manderlys see too much for their own good,_ he thought.

He nodded, and turned to make his way to the Sept of Snows. The distance wasn't as far is it seemed from the height of the New Castle, maybe a quarter of an hour. The city was quiet, people indoors as they prepared for their evening meals. He wondered if their tables would look like the one in the Merman's court, covered in simple food, like the people themselves.

He wondered what she would have been like, if she had stayed here rather than go to King's Landing. He wondered how Helenna Manderly would have laughed had she been allowed to remain among these plain-spoken, honest people as she came into her own, rather than constantly being surrounded by the snakes of court. He had seen her throw her head back in merriment more than once these last two days, exposing that fine white throat in a way she would never feel safe doing in King's Landing, never for an instant worried about who was or wasn't watching her.

And that's when he realized that he was among the chosen group allowed to actually see _her_. She had never endeavored to hide herself from him, had only ever censored herself when both of them were being watched. She had always spoken to him like they were the same, like he was her peer, her friend.

It humbled him at the same time that it fueled something searing in his loins.

Openly entering the Sept doors in search of her felt foreign. He was used to sneaking through side doors, taking up positions in the shadows to watch her. He vividly remembered what it felt like, her warmth, her head tilted far back so she could raise her luminous eyes to his as they stood so close together in the alcove of the Sept of Baelor. He'd wanted to strangle her and kiss her in equal measure. She'd taken such a risk to find him, and he'd been furious and exhilarated by it.

A silent sister nodded toward the entrance to the crypts when he asked the direction, and he went down the wide stone stairway softly. It was a lustrous white, just like the Castle Stair, just like everything in the city.

The catacomb was underground, the tombs set in recesses carved into the bedrock. They, too, were white, the effigies of their occupants carved from pale marble, bathed in honey-warm light from the flames in the sconces. Whale oil again, he thought warily.

He spotted her down the corridor. She was sitting on a bench facing an effigy of a woman. _Her mother_ , _of course_. He approached slowly, though she didn't look up at him.

He looked at the statue and held his breath. If he didn't know better, he'd have thought it was a likeness of her. The woman was tall, graceful of figure, her face fair and open. The sculptor had given her a thick rope of hair that fell across her shoulder, her hands caressing it. The lady smiled down at him, and for a brief moment it was like her eyes could actually see him.

"I always thought they were being polite, saying I looked like her," Lenna whispered from behind him. "She was so beautiful."

"She was," he answered. _As you are_. "You do look like her."

Lenna smiled half-heartedly. Her nose was red and her eyes bore the familiar strain of crying. She sniffled.

Compulsively, he reached into his pocket and produced a handkerchief. It was plain, undyed linen, well-worn and soft with many washings. As he sat down beside her, he held it out and she took it from him, her fingers lingering against his. Another streak of heat to his groin.

"It has been a trying day," she said, her voice imbued with false good humor.

"Why come here after that business?" he asked roughly.

She smiled a little more broadly. "Because she always knew what to do. She was full of these little sayings: 'the best remedy for sorrow is a good laugh,' 'a lady's smile is her armor and her courtesy her shield,' 'be pleased to see whomever you meet and they will be pleased to see you.' That worked, didn't it? I was pleased to see you in Cersei's solar, and you smiled back at me."

He thought of that moment again, how she had been able to transform herself from a frightened girl into a composed lady in a matter of moments. It was like watching a knight arm himself, putting on his armor piece by piece, preparing himself for the fight to come. It made so much more sense now, that iron control she possessed. She'd been bred to strap her courtesy on like armor, to gird herself with pleasantries and smiles in the same way he'd been taught to fight with swords and spears and violence. Hers was such a paltry defense.

"What would she tell you to do now?" he asked, genuinely curious. They were in such a predicament, even the advice of a dead woman was welcome. He felt for her, so keenly it was hard to breathe. He feared that she would struggle to keep up the facade necessary to endure going back now that she knew how easily she could be manipulated, how brutal the Lannisters could be to those that crossed them. For all their perverse kindness to her since she'd arrived in the capital, the Lannisters had still taken her as a punishment, to hobble her powerful father and bring him over to their side. They didn't believe they needed affection to rule. Steel and force were good enough for them.

"She'd tell me to bear up and do my duty. And do it with a glad heart."

"Sounds like bullshit," he responded quickly, immediately regretting it.

"Oh, Sandor," she whispered forlornly. "It's all bullshit. She knew it, as do you. I'm the only one who didn't." Her voice broke, and part of his heart did, too.

"Aye," he answered sadly. She wiped her eyes, proffering the handkerchief back to him. He waved it away, attempting something like humor. "You need it more. Your brother is right. You cry at fucking everything."

She nodded, her face crumpling again. Then she did the most extraordinary thing. She leaned her head onto his shoulder. He froze just for a breath, snaking his arm around her, letting his fingers splay against his waist. He drew her closer to him, sliding her across the bench, and she buried her face into his neck. He nearly flinched when her smooth forehead made contact with his scarred skin on that side, but he held still in the wonder of her warmth pressed against him. Her arm snaked its way up to loop around his neck, the tears coming in earnest. He turned his head just slightly, resting his lips against her hair. It wasn't a kiss, but it was the closest he imagined he'd ever get. Her hair was smooth and silky under the sensitive skin of his mouth, and he tightened his hold on her waist, his fingers traveling in slow circles he couldn't control, relishing her warmth.

She sagged against him, her little hand twining through the hair at the base of his skull, her fingers digging in and pulling him closer. It was enough to move him. He sat there and held her as she cried, hoping she didn't glance up to see the wetness on his own cheeks. He could feel her heart thundering where her breast pressed against his, and knew that his own was reverberating in a similar fashion. Her ear was pressed to his chest, she must be able to hear it, but he didn't care. All he wanted was to feel her arms around his neck, the rise and fall of her breast against his as she breathed, the smell and texture of her hair in his nose and against his skin.

 _Like she is mine, as I am hers._


	16. Chapter 16

Lenna XIII

A week. That was all she was given in the end. On the morning of the seventh day, Maester Loren had crept into the hall as they ate breakfast, a scroll in his hand. It was a terrible pantomime of the day that first raven came, that long ago nameday. He had brought that news, too, the parchment rolled in just the same way, with the same red lion sigil sealing it closed.

Only, on this day, instead of holding the parchment out to her father, Maester Loren brought it to her directly.

She knew it was summons back to King's Landing before she even broke the seal. She slid her finger beneath the wax, unfurled it, and in a glance knew that what little joy she'd had was now over. Without a word, without any hesitation, she had handed it to Sandor. He read it with as little joy as she, resignation and pity reflecting back at her from his hangdog face.

"We are recalled," she said, quietly. "The queen has requested that we be on the earliest ship back to King's Landing."

Her father looked at her with acceptance, almost like he'd expected it to have happened sooner.

"There is a ship prepared in the harbor. You'll be on it this afternoon," he said gruffly.

She nodded solemnly, looking to Sandor. His gray eyes were stormy, and he sat back in his chair wearily, thrusting the parchment away from him.

"Did you know, Papa?" she asked quietly.

"I suspected it may happen. I was rather hoping it wouldn't, but here we are," he replied, pinching the bridge of his nose. The jovial atmosphere that had pervaded the room evaporated, leaving behind a chill sense of loss.

"I should pack, then," Sandor said in his gravelly way, making to rise from his place at the table.

"No, Clegane," her father said, waving for him to sit down. "A squire can do it. Stay with us. Maester Loren," he called, and the little brown man bustled over to him. "Cancel the docket today, and send a maid to pack Lady Helenna's things."

The Maester nodded and hurried out again, leaving the family sitting in stunned silence around the table. Lenna looked at her plate, still full of oatcakes and honey, her stomach now filled with queasy dread. She pushed the plate away, folding her hands in her lap, digging her nails into her palms until they smarted. She was trying very hard not to cry, finding herself staring blankly at one of the murals, a school of silvery cod, unable to look at any of their faces.

"We have so little time left, lass," he father said quietly, and when she looked at him her chin began to tremble. His old eyes were soft and sad, but he had mustered a smile. "Let us not spend it in sorrow."

She tried to smile, not entirely sure she was successful. It was Wynna who led them, rising from her chair and moving to retrieve her fiddle. The rest of the family followed her, settling in around the hearth like it was evening and not mid-morning. Wynna tuned the instrument and began playing the old songs, one after another, the music swirling around them like the painted kelp on the floorboards, dark and rich and smooth.

Lenna seated herself on a cushion at her father's knee, much as she had done as a young girl. She could not fathom how she would walk on board a ship that afternoon, not without knowing the next time they would meet. She wondered if the Lannisters measured their wealth in time well spent. _Of course not, then they'd realize they were paupers_.

Six years away, just six days at home. A day for each year of her absence wasn't enough, though she treasured them more for it. She could barely complain, the trip home was an unexpected joy altogether, though she did regret the reason behind it. The shadow of the Lannister's hold had hung over them all, even the ones who didn't know it, and it had felt rebellious to ignore it in favor of enjoying each other's company. But they had. Barefoot walks on the strand with Wynna and Wylla, their heads bent as they looked for shells in the sand. Afternoons curled up on the ledge of her father's study, just as she'd done as a child. Long hours spent roaming the castle she'd been born in, rediscovering favorite spots, finding favorite servants. All of the them had spent every evening just like this, together by the hearth with music and laughter and ale. She felt years younger, and even Sandor had seemed to enjoy himself, talking with her brothers, listening intently to the stories her father told and when she sang with Wynna.

She was glad her father had insisted that he stay, comforted to know he would be there looking back at her with his gray eyes. She had once wondered what it felt like to be a condemned prisoner, to wake up on the day you knew would be your last. It had been an impossible thing to imagine, but now she thought she had a fairly good idea. It felt like swallowing a jellyfish, cold and quivering, a hungering for the day, but a dreading of the passage of the time.

It was too much. She tried to do what her mother would tell her, to put on a brave face, but as the day crept by, her last day, her resolve began to crumble. Combine it with the sweet, sad songs of home pouring from Wynna's fiddle and it left her no recourse but to cry. She wished she could crawl into her father's lap the way she had as a child, burying her face against his chest and blubbering as her heart broke again. So she cried, silently and constantly, until the tears had saturated her father's trousers where she had leaned her cheek.

When her tears subsided, she made the decision to try. She use every bit of her focus to commit everything to memory, from the feeling of her father's warm hand on her head, to the sound of Wynna's music, to the sight of Sandor Clegane holding her gaze like a lifeline from the other side of the hearth. He didn't look away when she tried to quirk her lip in a watery smile, but neither did he return it. She took out the handkerchief he'd given her, softer than she would have expected anything of his to be, and wiped her nose. His eyes changed as he watched her, going soft and gloomy as he swallowed hard, looking just as troubled as he had the night they arrived.

He looked back at her steadily and with deliberation, like he had decided that his gaze would be enough to sustain her, and she remembered how he had held her in the crypts the week before, bringing her into his bulk and letting her curl up in him. It had felt comfortable and safe, his big body shielding her from reality, his warmth reassuring as his fingers traced circles on her side. She wondered if he had been conscious of how he was touching her, if he knew she could hear how thunderously his heart was beating beneath her ear where it lay on his chest. She could have attributed it to discomfort, but she knew better. She knew his heart was thumping for the same reason hers was.

She had gone to bed that night with troubled thoughts, but they had nothing to do with leaving her family. No, she had laid in her bed and stared at the canopy, touching the parts of her that he had touched, her thoughts consumed as she did things she wasn't exactly ashamed of, but was quite sure a proper maid wouldn't do, his name on her lips. It hadn't shocked her. She had turned to him for comfort, and he had opened himself to her. She had felt her heart thundering in her ribcage as she pressed herself against him, at once looking for reassurance and reaching out for something she didn't quite understand. She'd felt hot and cold at the same time, a strange ache taking up residence in her belly, desperate for more of him but never satisfied. It was the strangest pleasure. It felt _good_ to be wrapped up in him, that puzzling throbbing in her gut made stronger by the smell of soap and sweat on his skin, the warmth and strength of his hand against her.

Still she looked at him. _We have gotten ourselves into such a mess_. There was a depth of feeling in his eyes that she knew was reflected in hers. _It's impossible_ , she thought forlornly. It reminded her of that story of the knight and his lady, who cared for each other in silence, unable to speak about what lay between them. Only now, instead of being beautiful and haunting, it was terrible and painful.

Not only was she about to lose her family, but she knew that as soon as they stepped foot back in King's Landing, she'd lose him in a way, too. She'd see him, and they'd walk side by side through the passages, be in the same room, but he wouldn't be able to seek her out and stand with her looking at the sea. They wouldn't have many opportunities to talk as they had, to share pieces of themselves. She had once thought him hard, but she knew now not to confuse pain with harshness, and she knew he was capable of great tenderness. She wondered if he had thought about who they would have to become again, and whether it had caused him the same pangs of despondency.

 _Enough_ , she thought. _That is enough. Do not waste your time on things you can't control_. Only it wasn't her voice in her head, it was her mother's. It made her sit up straighter. Her tears passed, and she wiped her eyes. She found a smile, turning it on Wynna, and the girl came to stand next to her, striking up the first bars of a shanty they'd sung as children. It was a joyful sound, and within minutes everyone was singing the chorus. Even Sandor was tapping a finger against his knee as he listened, the faint curl of a smirk on his lips that only she could see after years of studying that harsh face.

The last hours were as merry as they could make them, sharing reminiscences and laughing as much as they could. Lunch was served to them off of trays by the hearth, and Lenna was amused to see it was oatcakes again. She tucked in as heartily as she could, knowing it would be a long time before she had such solid fare again. Despite the humor and the warmth, though, it rather reminded Lenna of the wake they'd attended for her mother's mother many years before. They all fell into a bittersweet joy, their words softened and their laughter muted in spite of themselves.

When at last the time came, her father rose and held out a hand. They were to sail with the evening tide, and it was time to go. She took his old hand, letting him draw her to her feet, wrapping her into his arms and holding her close.

"This is your home. You will return to it, and to us," he whispered into her hair. She nodded, valiantly subduing the tears. He released her and kissed her quickly on the forehead. "Bear up, girl."

He moved with alacrity to Clegane, seizing him by the hand and beckoning him to come close. Her father spoke to him lowly and with and urgency that she could see in the tightness of his temples and directness of his gaze. Lenna couldn't hear what he'd said, but whatever it was caused Sandor to widen his eyes in astonishment as he shook her father's hand. The old lord slapped him once on the shoulder and moved toward his sons.

Lenna turned her attention to her nieces who had gathered her between them, their heads all bent together as they said their farewells. Even her brothers embraced her, and she could still feel the rasp of their whiskers on her cheeks as they walked into the courtyard together.

It was all happening too quickly. The cart with her things had already been sent to the quay. A maid had brought her cloak, and Prim was there standing next to Stranger, placidly tonguing her bit.

Impulsively, Lenna turned to Wynna, taking both her hands in her own. "I want you to keep her. I never ride her, and you'll be good to her. Take her out beyond the walls, let her walk on the sands for me," she said urgently. "It isn't fair to take her back."

Wynna nodded, her chin trembling but her expression resolved. She held out Lenna's cloak and wrapped it around her shoulders. Her blue eyes were brimming as she kissed Lenna's cheek before she turned to join the line of Manderlys standing solemnly on the paving stones, their faces like marble.

Lenna told the stable boy to take Prim back to her stall. She turned to Sandor, and he nodded. Approaching Stranger, the huge mount swung his head around to look at her with his enormous brown eyes, so chestnut in color they were almost red. He snuffled when she ran her hand over his nose.

Sandor had crouched low, webbing his hands together. She put her right foot in them and let him toss her onto the saddle as easily as if she were a leaf or a blade of grass, hooking her leg around the pommel. He swung up behind her, his warmth and size enveloping her like a cloak, a chill running down her spine when he leaned forward to take the reins and his chest came into full contact with her back. He put both arms around her to control the reins, and she wished she could have leaned into him as she had that day in the crypt. Instead, she sat bolt upright, and he dug his heels into the destrier's sides and nodded to her father. They two men exchanged a look she didn't understand, but it was grave and almost like a oath had been sworn. Perhaps one had been.

She made herself smile at them as Sandor pulled Stranger about. They all smiled back at her, and she loved them all the more for it, for giving her this last memory of them looking at her with shining faces. She raised her hand in a meek wave, which they returned. Then she straightened her spine and faced forward, determined that she would not look back again.

When she knew they could no longer see her for Sandor's bulk, she sagged against him, leaning her head back against his shoulder and closing her eyes. She felt him lower his head, his hair brushing her cheeks, and she turned her face into his neck for the briefest moment, taking comfort in the fact that he still smelled like sweat and soap.

The captain of the guard led the detail that escorted them to the harbor where the ship lay at anchor. She looked about herself dazedly as they passed back down the Castle Stair, through the Seal Gate, and came to a halt on the wharf. Sandor dismounted and reached up to her, his hands settling around her waist, so enormous his fingers nearly met. She braced her hands on his shoulders and let him lower her slowly down until her feet touched the ground.

"Alright?" he asked lowly.

She nodded, unable to muster a word for him. Sandor's hand came to rest on her elbow, urging her forward, and together they walked slowly up the gangplank.

The captain met them on deck and showed them to their cabins. She was only vaguely aware of Sandor asking if she was alright, her mind was on other things, the memory of her family in the courtyard, the sight of tears in her niece's eyes, the possibility that it would be a very long time before she saw them again. _If she saw them again_. A strong wave of grief washed over her, and this time, rather than fighting it, she let it overtake her, stepping into her cabin and bolting the door.

Sandor XII

She didn't emerge from her cabin for three days. He knocked and called her name, every morning, noon, and night. Nothing. He left her trays of food, pots of tea. Nothing. He even put a flagon of ale at the door, but she didn't touch it. He only knew she was alive because he could hear her moving about, and once she had told him to please leave her alone. It was enough to satisfy. The girl had a right to be upset.

In a perverse way, her retreat was a relief. He didn't rightly know how to face her. His mind was in a constant state of agitation, and he chewed on the events of the in White Harbor over and over again. Standing with her on the ramparts, her glances and songs, seeking comfort in his arms in the crypts and on the back of his damned warhorse, her face buried for the sweetest instant against his neck, her breath on his skin. He'd have locked those memories away, kept them to take out and ponder out in his darker, solitary moments, all the nights in his bunk that stretched endlessly ahead of him.

But then Wyman Manderly had seized his hand there in the courtyard of the New Castle and pulled him close enough that only they two of them could hear.

"Keep her safe, Clegane. Bring her through this, and I will be indebted to you. Anything you ask within my power I shall give without question or protest."

The old man had held his gaze, and Sandor Clegane stood wide-eyed looking back at him. An flaming arrow had just pierced his gut, igniting his belly, choking his lungs. Manderly's promise sounded like- he didn't want to think about what it sounded like. _Impossible, foolish_ , he thought, _daft_. Surely, he meant money, or a position, or anything other than the thing that he wanted most.

 _You're a daft cunt for even thinking it_ , he thought bitterly. To even consider that Manderly meant that he'd allow him...and her...no. Impossible. Folly and madness.

His gut disagreed. His gut said that Wyman Manderly meant exactly what he said: he'd give him _anything_ he asked for if she weathered whatever was coming safely because of him.

And what did he want? _Her. Always her._ From the minute she had appeared in Cersei Lannister's solar, a forgotten part of him had recognized something in her. She'd smiled at him, and a hardened piece of himself had cracked open and begun to bleed. It had never stopped. Perhaps her innocence had been what drew him in, or her candidness. When she looked at him, he felt like a whole person, not a monster. He wanted her, beast that he knew he was. He wanted _time_ when he could simply stand next to her without explaining himself, to have the chance talk with her, to have her songs for his ears. To have her warmth next to him, the freedom to run his hands through her hair, to taste her mouth-

 _You don't just want her, you foolish cunt. You love her._

The admission cost him greatly. He spent two days aimlessly wandering the deck with his teeth gritted together against the sensation that his chest might just implode, the strange feeling that he might collapse in on himself under the weight of the word itself. He had been content to call it lust, to believe he wanted her in that vulgar, bawdy way men wanted maids. He did, _oh gods_ , he wanted that so badly, but there was more to it, something much softer, more delicate. Something more powerful and destructive than he thought possible.

Something she could never, under any circumstances, know about. The thought of her knowing, of not feeling the same way for him- she could never feel the same way for him. A woman like that would never be able to look at a dog like him with anything more than friendship. It was a miracle she felt that for him to begin with.

To have said it to himself, to know what to call that powerful, uncomfortable, wretched feeling, made that old vow sit even more heavily on him. He'd spent years wondering _why_ , and now he knew. And like many revelations, it had come with more knowledge than he knew how to handle, how to navigate. Sandor Clegane was prone to melancholy, self-hatred and self-pity, but he wasn't used to utter despair.

The old man's story about the Reynes had shed abundant light on why Lenna had been brought to King's Landing all those years before, but it did little to give him clues as to what Tywin was preparing for. As far as Sandor could tell, the realm was at peace. There were no threats to their shores, not even from the exiled Targaryen prince and princess, supposedly harbored somewhere in Essos. There were no whispers of treason. He, of all people, would know.

But something was coming. He smelled it like a bloodhound might scent a fox. It may not be for years, but something was coming. He wondered if she would still be in King's Landing when it did, but he imagined that she would. Cersei had imposed her will on the girl, had given her a taste of her freedom and pulled her straight back in by royal decree. There was nothing Lenna could do but board that ship and sail back to her duty, just as there was nothing he could do. To even think otherwise would be folly.

At least Wyman Manderly was a wise man. Sandor had had plenty of time to think over the conversations he'd had with the old lord. His initial reaction, to leave Lenna with her father, to convince him to keep her instead of sending her back, that was unusual for him. It came of a place of feeling, not a place of cunning. He knew better, but where she was concerned there was nothing he would not do to secure her health and happiness.

And Wyman Manderly had been absolutely right on one account. No harm would come to Lenna if Sandor Clegane had a breath left in his body.

It made him blush with embarrassment, wondering how much the old man had guessed and reckoning that he had seen everything. Those two nights as he lay in his bunk he hadn't been tormented with lustful thoughts. He'd instead been tortured by the idea of a yellow and black cloak spread over her shoulders, the sight of her sitting as she did so often with Myrcella in her lap, only instead of the princess a robust babe with an unruly mop of hair and gray eyes was cradled in her arms. He dreamed that he would wake up and see her face turned to him, her head resting on the pillow beside his.

 _Fucking hells, you're worse than the damned knight in the story._

When she emerged on the third day, she was so pale she looked like the heroines in her fairy stories with her dark hair falling in sharp contrast against her skin. He swallowed his nerves and steeled himself. They paced, they talked, and he even told her stories. Bawdy stories that made her laugh, stories he meant to be heroic but which turned out to be wretched. He even talked about his parents, his sister, though he hadn't spoken of them in years.

He talked more than he thought he'd ever talked before. He wasn't a talker, that was supposed to be her job. She was the one who was full of tales and tidbits of interesting knowledge. It was her bloody duty, for fuck's sake. He was no good at it, but he tried. For her.

When he ran out of stories he didn't mind her hearing, he even read from her little red book. He wasn't used to reading. It was hard and he stumbled on some of the words, which made him feel clumsy and stupid. Without him noticing, his focus entirely on the book and not making a bigger fool of himself than he was already, she sidled up beside him where he sat on a pile of rope and canvas, his legs stretched out in front of him. He felt her before he saw her, and when he turned his head their noses almost touched. Heat flashed over him, heat and want as he flicked his eyes to see if they were being watched. It was one thing to sit together on the deck to while away the time, it was another to be so close.

"Tenacity," she murmured. He looked sideways at her, knotting his brow together.

"What?"

"Tenacity," she repeated, tracing her finger underneath the word he'd just butchered.

"Tenacity," he parroted dumbly. He might have flung the damn book away if her hand hadn't snaked into the crook of his elbow. Before he knew it, her sharp little chin was digging into his shoulder.

"Correct. Carry on," she said. He could feel her breath stirring warmly against his ear. He fought the current of energy that ran along his neck, raising gooseflesh.

"What does it mean?" he asked, swallowing hard.

"Persistent. If you have tenacity, you are determined."

"To do what?"

"Whatever you decide, I suppose," she replied.

Then he noticed he was reading the damn story of the knight and his lady-fair. He hadn't meant to, but he read automatically, paying little heed to the what he was saying. He was in the middle before he was really aware that he'd begun. The book was open to the illustration that he hated, the knight looking at the woman so helplessly. His own hands grew slack and he let the book fall across his knees, so aware of her nearness he could feel his skin thrum like it was calling out to her.

He cleared his throat and snapped the book shut.

"Enough of that," he muttered roughly.

She pulled away from him, and he missed her warmth against him. It was also a relief, he didn't know how to respond when she'd touched him. He both craved and hated it.

She rose and went to stand at the railing, her hair whipping about her face. She'd left it free, and he watched as the wind contorted it into graceful shapes in the air.

"You hate that story anyway," she said, turning back to him and leaning back against the rail.

"How do you know?"

"You always have," she said, picking at a fingernail. "When I would read it to Joffrey, you'd always look so cross. Granted, you usually look cross."

He cocked an eyebrow at her and she giggled.

"Why do you hate it so? I always loved it."

"'Course you did," he said lowly. "Silly maid."

"It's beautifully tragic," she said, but her voice was no longer teasing. It was grave.

"It's daft," he replied sharply. "Nonsense about duty and honor and love. As if that's what being a knight's about."

"And you do hate knights," she said flatly.

"Aye," he replied.

"You practically are one."

"No, I'm not," he said through gritted teeth. "I have taken no vows. I do not make promises that I won't keep."

"What was it you were saying about honor?"

Her tone was teasing but it made him wince. "I have none."

"I beg to differ," she replied, her voice gentle again. "I think you'd make a very good knight, for what it's worth."

"I wouldn't want to be caught up in the lot of them," he said.

"My father? My brothers? Ser Barristan? They are all good men and good knights."

"They aren't all like your father."

"No," she said slowly, "but they aren't all bad. There must be a reason-"

"Here's your reason," he thundered, pointing to his face. "That good enough for you?"

She looked taken aback. "Sandor, you've been asked, _that_ doesn't prevent you-"

"The one who gave me this is a knight now, you know that? And why? Because I was playing with a toy that belonged to him. I didn't steal it. I was just playing with it. A wooden _knight_ of all things. And he held me down while I screamed."

Her face had gone white again.

"My brother," he bit out. "I was seven, and he was old enough to know exactly what he was doing. Our parents told everyone it was an accident, that my bed caught fire. They acted like he hadn't tried to kill me."

"Oh gods, Sandor," she said. "You've never said."

"I've never told anyone," he muttered. "Why would I? It's bad enough I'm Gregor Clegane's brother, but for them to know it was him who did it?"

"You were a child."

"And he was a monster. A monster they were all clamoring to take vows. He did, knighted by a king no less, and what has he done since? He raped and murdered Elia Martell and killed her children. That's the worst, but not the only thing he's done. He was already an anointed knight. Vows didn't stop him. They didn't make him a knight because he was good or honorable, they made him a knight because he's a killer. Same reason they want me."

She'd fallen silent, looking far off across the water with her eyes squinting against the sun.

"I'm sorry," she said, looking back at him.

"Don't need your pity."

"Good," she responded waspishly. "I have none. Not for you."

He was exhausted by her foolishness just as he wished so badly to preserve her innocence. How she would survive, now knowing what she knew, he didn't know.

"Knights are just contract killers," he said. "They're war machines. They have one purpose, and it has nothing to do with honor or _love_. The sooner you know that, the better."

"My father wasn't a contract killer, and neither were my brothers," she said flatly. She had drawn her mouth into a angry little rosebud like a pouting child.

He laughed. It was mirthless, but he laughed. "What do you call it when you're paid to kill other men? Not only that, your father was fighting for the _Lannisters._ And your brothers fought in the rebellion. What honor was there in deposing a king?"

"It didn't stop you," she bit back.

"No, but I never pretended it mattered one way or the other to me. I never pretended at honor. I had a calling. I was good at killing, and I enjoyed it. The sweetest thing-"

"That's vile," she said, interrupting him.

"Vile? Aye, maybe, but you'll be glad of it some day. Your father certainly is."

"What do you mean?"

"Why would your father, the great Lord of White Harbor, be content with sending his lovely daughter back to a nest of vipers in the south? Because you're with me, and I'm good at killing men, and he knows that I made a promise."

"You take no stock in vows, it's a wonder you've bothered to keep it," she said derisively. "If vows mean so little to you-"

"I will keep it," he rumbled, his voice rising until he was almost yelling.

He knew he was looming, knew his face was contorted and livid. She went pale, her eyes like those of stunned rabbit. He'd always been careful, so careful, to control his temper around her. He didn't want her to see him that way, all straining muscle and bared teeth. As much as that rage helped him do what he did best, he was afraid she would think differently of him, that it would change the way she looked at him. Anger was still flickering through his blood, but he was also awash in remorse. He turned away, dragging a hand across his face, through his hair, covering up the scars. He wanted to hide. He wanted to go back in time and avoid this whole conversation.

"Lenna, I'm-"

"No, Sandor. You're allowed to be angry. Even with me. It is I who should apologize. I have needled you, and I shouldn't have. I'm just-"

"Afraid. As well you should be. I've said it before," he said lamely. "Still."

She looked back over the railing and he thought he saw the wind blow tears from her eyes. He hated that he should have made her cry.

"I shouldn't have yelled," he continued, finding it hard to form the words. "I frightened you, and I'm sorry. I would never hurt you. Not on purpose."

"I know that," she answered. "I know you wouldn't."

And he believed her. She looked at him with eyes full, not of tears but of something else. She came to stand by him again, and they stood watching the waves in a full silence. The waves soothed his fractious mind, the gentle, angular rising and falling lulling the roiling frustration in him. He watched as the little waves crested in lines of frothy white before being absorbed back into the water like a whisper.

The woman standing next to him irritated him and amazed him in equal measure. All her confidence in goodness, in champions, made him scornful. The world was not a just place, and men were more often monsters than not. At the same time, he knew that it wasn't that she thought knights were good, it was simply that she wanted them to be. He didn't give her enough credit for knowing what the world was really like. He knew that. It was the only world he'd ever known, the cruel one, though he'd gotten a taste of a gentler one in her. How she could still believe in it, he didn't know. He sometimes forgot that she'd been on her own for six years, that the closest thing she had to a friend was _him_ of all people. She knew what the world was, for all she told Myrcella the stories of valiant knights and ladies, for all the stock she put in vows and promises. It was a kind of admirable wishful thinking.

 _Tenacity_ , he thought, remembering the word. A determination, a persistence in believing the best even when all of the proof said otherwise.

He didn't know whether she was foolish or valiant, but it didn't much matter. She'd need every ounce of that tenacity to get through what lay ahead. He suspected he'd need it, too, in order to keep them both afloat through the storm they were headed back into.

When she looped her arm through his elbow and leaned her head against his arm, he let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. Her eyes were troubled as she looked out across the sea, the green and gray and amber a perfect match for the deep waters. Her father had talked of hurricanes, and while he had no experience with them, it sounded about right to him. The Lannisters would bring her to them, he would pass on the information he'd been sent to gather, and she would be absorbed back into their circle. Only this time, instead of ignorant of their capabilities and motives, she would be going into it with understanding of both. It would test her. _Eye of the storm, indeed_.

A/N: Thank you all for your kind words, I really do get inspired to keep working when I read them! This is the longest chapter yet...they just seem to get longer and longer. Hope you enjoy!


	17. Chapter 17

Lenna XIV

They docked mid-morning. Making their way up from the Mud Gate took little time, and Sandor left her in the courtyard without a word. She didn't even seen him go, he retreated when her back was turned, distracted by instructing the servants to take her luggage. She was bereft to find him gone.

He'd been irritable and fractious the whole ride from the quay, refusing to look at her or speak to her, his eyes coldy scanning the streets as he led Stranger, his other hand on the hilt of his shortsword. Already, the delicate threads that bound them were being rent asunder, and she felt frayed and miserable. The last weeks had been like a dream, a wonderful, comfortable dream, and she didn't want to wake to reality again. She felt his absence on her very skin, suddenly cold. It took great effort to keep her face a study of amiability, her lips set in a smile for the guards, the stable boys, the maids that she passed in the passageways on her way back to her room, wishing he were walking beside her, knowing he could not even if he wished to.

The first thing she saw when she opened the door to her chamber was a large, heavy envelope sitting squarely in the middle of her bed. Her name had been written in ornate script: Lady Helenna Manderly of White Harbor, Royal Tutor. The flap was secured with a red wax seal bearing the Lannister lion.

Her eyes shut involuntarily, so tired she could hardly stand. She couldn't immediately bring herself to open it, instead thinking back to the same seal she had broken the week before, wondering if this one was to bring as much heartache as that one had. Every time she'd had to open a missive sealed with that damned lion it had brought pain. The last had brought her unspeakable and unnamed loss, that of her family, of course, but also that of the friend she could not put from her mind. When she'd turned in the courtyard, looking to say goodbye to him, and he'd already left, she'd felt as raw as if she'd been cut, and not just a little angry at him for leaving her without a word.

They'd spent the final days of the journey in quiet company with each other. After their argument they both seemed more aware of the other, more careful, but it wasn't at all uncomfortable. If anything, they were more deliberate in their care of each other. He was cautious at first, treating her as gently as he might a skittish horse or an injured bird. She realized that his outburst had hurt him far more than it had her, and he was afraid. She saw it in that grey gaze, the tentative way he looked at her, unsure of himself, of her, like he was worried she was angry.

 _No, he was worried you were frightened. Of him_.

Never. She could never be frightened of him, even when he loomed over her with his fists clenched. He'd been an awesome sight, and she had shrunk from him, but not because she was fearful. She was sorry. She had needled him, pushed him, and she should have known better. She was keenly aware that he treated her with a care he reserved only for the princess, and it was different even then. _Tenderness_ , she thought. The way he looked at her, sat with her, listened to her, with his whole attention, like there was nothing else he could possibly be doing.

 _Oh gods_.

Every breath, every movement was like an apology, and he reminded her of nothing except his namesake. He was behaving like a chastened dog, one that lashed out at its owner in self-defense, his tail trod upon, and was desperate for a sign that he was forgiven. He had listened to her talk and read in the sunshine in silence, his face like a statue, and that night he didn't protest when she leaned against him, his arm sliding around her, tension in his fingers even though he didn't grip her to him like she wanted him to. She had felt him sigh, though she didn't hear it, his great chest expanding and collapsing in palpable relief.

Each night she had done the same, slipping up against him. His arm didn't come around her again, but he seemed easier. They had passed skins of wine between them as they looked at the stars and spoke softly of nothing in particular. He surprised her, shyly asking her to sing. She had done so gladly, but felt bashful herself, wondering why all her favorites were stories of sad loves. She'd nearly cried singing _My Heart is Sair_ , her voice thickening toward the end as their reality came crashing over her. She could have sworn it had moved him, too, something silvery on his cheek when she turned her chin up toward him, but he'd cast his hair across his face, looking away, before she could be sure.

That last morning they had eaten their biscuits and downed their tepid tea with the sunrise, sitting together on the deck. The Keep was already in view, and she was put to mind of the morning of her first arrival, when she had watched the gulls as they flew about the harbor and seen the florid ramparts of King's Landing for the first time. They didn't speak much, just a word here or there that she couldn't remember now, even though she desperately wanted to. They had stood shoulder to shoulder, and she had leaned against him, her head in its place against the muscle of his upper arm. She stayed as long as she could, and it was Sandor who reminded her to go below and prepare. He followed after her, going to the door of his cabin, looking back at her with an inscrutable, powerful expression in his eyes before purposefully turning and shutting the door. She, too, turned and went into her cabin, her breast heavy, carefully taking off the woolen dress and replacing it with one more suitable for the capital, a slate blue she was fairly sure he liked. She'd long noted that he liked her in blue, the way his eyes softened when they settled on her. _They always soften, has nothing to do with the color of your gown._ She wove the gray ribbon through her hair, and after a final check that everything had been packed away, she went above to wait.

When he met her on the deck to disembark, he was wearing his armor. She'd barely seen him in it for three weeks, and she found she no longer cared for it. Once, she thought it made him look strong, the dull plate and green cloak suiting him. Now, she hardly recognized him. In a jerkin, a tunic, trousers, simple attire, he'd been a man, someone she knew and trusted. It was the armor that changed him, his bearing becoming more adversarial, his head and shoulders stooped with challenge. He had gone below as Sandor and reemerged as the Hound.

She should have said goodbye before they went below, because the man who walked down the gangplank with her wasn't Sandor. His face was hard, his eyes narrowed, a scowl already brewing. Her chest cracked, but she had no time to examine these changes or her own feelings. An escort was there to take them back to the Keep, just two mounted guards. They were disinterested in their task, their horses pawing impatiently on the dock. Sandor had led Stranger down the gangplank, and the enormous beast stood placid beside him. Even Sandor's helm was in place, the warm sun reflecting off its fangs. He had looked down at her askance, and she saw _him_ in the gray eyes, just for a moment, but then his face had hardened again. It was like he was saying farewell. Without word or warning, he stooped and threw her up into Stranger's saddle before taking his reins in hand and leading the massive beast toward the Mud Gate.

"You won't ride?" she asked quietly. He looked up at her from the corner of his eye.

"Never here. Not with you," he replied. The sharp pain that ached beneath her breastbone flashed hot and her throat suddenly closed. He was right, and for a moment she hated him for it. He couldn't be Sandor, not any more than she could remain Lenna, not with all these eyes and ears about them. The Hound had returned to the capital bearing back Lady Helenna Manderly, and they must play their parts, even better than before.

She laughed hollowly to keep herself from crying, returning from her memory to the stillness of her room. She shook her head to scatter the unhappy thoughts, looking down at the thick envelope that lay unopened in her hand. She collected herself, imagining that others were watching. Her spine became straight, her shoulders relaxed back and down, her chin lifted. With cool detachment she broke the seal.

It was an invitation. To Tyrion Lannister's nameday banquet that very night.

She replaced the invitation in its envelope with neither pleasure nor pain, but deliberation. Declining was not an option, even if she was exhausted and heartsore. _You don't have time for either._ She ordered a bath from a passing maid and set about making herself into a lady again. The voyage hadn't lent itself to cleanliness beyond a quick scrub with cold water and a rough sponge. She had flubbed her first entrance into King's Landing in her roughspun dress and windblown hair. She'd not make the same mistake twice.

While she waited, she selected her gown. The crimson silk, the one she'd worn the night Tyrion Lannister had made her sing for him. The color gave her courage, reminding her that she had played her part for six years and could continue to do so. Red for boldness, a show of loyalty. She then took out a pair of soft gray slippers, and she decided she would twine Sandor's gray ribbon into her hair once it had been washed and dried.

The servants arrived with the steaming ewers of water. She dismissed them as soon as the tub was filled before her hearth. She took advantage of the hot water to wallow while she could. Yes, she missed her family and White Harbor, but she had expected that loss. Their time together was always She hadn't expected the ache that had started when he'd appeared on deck in his armor, every inch the Hound again. It was strange, when he was Sandor, she didn't see his scars. She'd become so used to them before, that was true, but she was always aware of them when he was the Hound, because he was aware of them. She had looked past them to see him in spite of them. But she didn't even notice them on the man who had travelled north with her, and he seemed to pay them no mind, not bothering to hide them from her. The Sandor who had sat on the decks and told her stories and shared his wine with was handsome, and tall, and strong. But he had been put away as quiet as she had packed her gowns that morning, replaced by the Hound- ferocious, enormous, and intimidating.

 _Cold_.

 _Wrong. All wrong_. She knew he wasn't cold. True, it had taken him time to open himself to her, years even, but he was her friend. Never before had she felt a wall between them as she had that morning as they left the ship. He'd always been more to her than a suit of armor with a devilish tongue. It was the abrupt disappearance of the gentler man that inspired the worst of her heartache. She mourned the easiness they'd learned together, the underlying, unspoken affection. She already missed _him_.

How he talked about himself disturbed her. She almost wished he hadn't told her what had happened to him, and she knew that he intended to scare her with his vile bloodlust. He seemed to have long ago decided that he would be better off dead, and he'd spent a considerable portion of his life trying to make that reality. He'd pushed people away before they had a chance to do the same to him. She couldn't imagine it had been easy growing up with a face like that, especially in the same household as the one who had done it to you. Of course he didn't want to be hurt again, and it was much easier to be angry.

He wanted her to think he was rough, that he had no feelings, that he was just as monstrous as they said he was. He wanted her to think that he wasn't honorable or good. And perhaps he wasn't, not entirely, like she always believed her father and brothers, and their liege, Lord Stark, to be. He might have killed many, he might even have delighted in it, but she could not believe it was all he was. She knew it wasn't. She wished he could see himself as she did, tempestuous, yes, but capable of great kindness. He had stood watch for a stranger's grief, brought a lonely girl ribbons, and then held her while she cried even though he was clearly uncomfortable doing so. She didn't know his motivations for sure, but she thought it almost certain that he did so out of some tender feeling for her. The way he looked at her at times made her breath shallow. _Monsters don't have tender feelings_ , she thought. _But then again, I've never thought he was one._

The only monsters she had met were beautiful, golden-haired, and expecting her to make an appearance that evening. She quickly scrubbed the salt off her skin, feeling refreshed despite how tepid the water had become. Her maid knocked at the door, and she rose to dry off and wrap herself in her dressing gown. The girl came in quietly, and together they went through the tedious process of preparing for a royal banquet. She wondered briefly who would be there, then found she didn't much care.

When the maid laced her into her dress, she tsked as she pulled the laces tighter than she had before. Lenna knew she had not eaten much on the return voyage, and she knew she was thinner for it. The dress itself was light as gossamer, and it made her feel exposed even though she was covered almost from collarbone to wrist. It felt foreign after a month of warm woolens. She allowed the maid to plait her hair and arrange it in a coil on the back of her head instead of letting it hang free. The girl threaded the gray ribbon through it, the same color as his eyes, and when the girl dabbed rouge on her lips and cheeks, she didn't object. Neither did she protest the lines of kohl she drew along her eyes.

"You are very beautiful, my lady. You should wear your hair like that more often. Many women would kill for your neck and eyes." the maid chattered, and Lenna looked at the girl, perplexed. She hadn't been attending the girl's ministrations, far too caught up in her own thoughts.

When Lenna looked into her dim little glass, she didn't recognize the woman looking back at her. It was the first time she saw the resemblance to her mother, her long white neck bared and graceful, the heavy dark hair a startling contrast. Her mother had had fine cheekbones, and Lenna saw them peeping through her own flesh, as well as the finely arched brows like swipes of ink across her brow. Her mouth was Adalyn Locke's, too, a reddened bow with a full lower lip. Only the eyes were that of a Manderly.

It heartened her to see her mother reflected back at her. She needed her mother's strength, needed to think as she would have. It had always fascinated her to watch her mother arbitrate as a child. Her father had trusted her as much as he did his most senior advisors, and it wasn't unusual that she would pass judgment in his absence. She could quell discontent with the subtlest tilt of the head, the mere appearance of a dimple. It was a form of magic.

Lenna wondered vaguely if Adalyn Locke had learned it all from Joanna Lannister.

She remembered sitting before her mother's effigy in the crypts, astonished to see her own face on the statue. Tywin Lannister and her father both had told her she looked like her mother's twin, but she had never seen the resemblance before. She had always thought her mother so beautiful, so graceful. It then occurred to her that she hadn't resembled her mother that strongly at fourteen, the last time she had seen her alive. And after her mother's death, she had almost forgotten what she'd looked like. The thought never crossed her mind that she might grow into her mother's gentle beauty. After all, her reputation was for study, not her looks. She didn't think anyone other than this little maid had ever called her beautiful before.

 _He did_ , her mother whispered, _I heard him_. And he had. She'd made some listless comment about how lovely her mother was, and he'd agreed with her, telling her that she looked like her. At the time, she'd thought nothing of it, just another person noting a resemblance. But it had been more than that, his voice soft as he acknowledged her mother's beauty and saw it reflected in her.

Her chest felt full, and she shook herself, sparing a smile and a word of thanks for the maid. It was time. She rose and followed her feet to Cersei's private quarters. It was apparently to be a small affair, and when she was ushered into the room she was surprised by just how small.

Tyrion Lannister, the queen, her brother, and their father were all gathered in the queen's private chambers. The king was conspicuously absent. _Gods,_ she thought, _truly a family party_. She walked right into an actual den of lions, their green eyes all turned to her. And, of course, Sandor Clegane was standing in the shadows, back against the wall and arms crossed against his armored chest.

The Hound looked at her from beneath the fall of his hair without any warmth whatsoever. Her courage nearly failed her.

"My lady Helenna," Tyrion cried. He had been standing with his brother, but when the guard opened the door he had spotted her immediately. He rushed toward her on his bowed legs, seizing both her hands in his. "I wasn't sure if you would come."

"I couldn't ignore a royal summons, could I?" she replied as jovially as she could. Despite herself, the pain and exhaustion, she was pleased to see him. He was clearly delighted to see her, a large grin splitting his face, the mismatched eyes glowing.

"Even lovelier than I remember," he said softly, pressing her hand. "What a fine present you are."

She smiled, letting him lead her into the room.

"We are glad you could join us, Lady Helenna," Cersei said smoothly as Lenna sank into a low curtsey.

"I wouldn't have missed it," she replied. "How lucky it is that we returned in time."

"Indeed," Cersei replied lightly. "My brother would have been quite disappointed if you hadn't. You had a pleasant journey?"

"Yes, your grace. No storms in the Fingers this time," she replied, thinking that the only storm she had to face was the one she had just entered.

"Your hair looks quite becoming that way," Cersei said, her brows coming together. "You look quite grown up."

"I am nearly two and twenty, your grace. I suppose it is about time." Lenna forced herself to laugh, praying that Cersei would buy her humor.

She did.

Before long, they were seated at the long table that had been brought into Cersei's chambers. Lenna was seated between Tywin and Jaime Lannister, with Tyrion opposite. The older lord was solicitous as ever, inquiring after her health, the length of the voyage. Everything delivered in cool, polite ones that made her cringe inwardly. All she could think of was dark caverns brimming with drowned children.

She tried to keep her attention present to the party, ignoring Sandor where he stood against the wall. Each time she did look at him, though, their eyes met, as if drawn to each other. His face was long and gaunt, his eyes dark, and he watched each of the attendees like a hawk, herself included.

The table was laden with rich food, though Lenna took little. She picked at the feast of roasted meats and vegetables, delicate rolls and bowls of fruit. Her wine goblet was never empty, and with an empty stomach she was soon a bit tipsy. She could feel heat in her cheeks as she listened to the conversations around her, frequently meeting Tyrion's gaze over the platters and candles, his eyes alight with soft pleasure each time they rested on her.

"I hear that you are lately returned from the North."

She turned to the silky voice at her side to find Ser Jaime Lannister looking at her intently. She was sure they had never spoken beyond bare pleasantries before, and she'd certainly never been so close to him. She was momentarily struck by how beautiful he was, like each feature had been sculpted by some master artist as an exemplar of masculine perfection. The strong jaw, the well proportioned mouth, the smooth brow, and beryl-bright eyes, yes, he was extremely handsome indeed. He was regarding her with a little smirk about his mouth and a calculating look in his eyes. They were identical to Cersei's, unsurprising given they were twins, but there was a hint of warmth in them that she never saw in the queen's. It made her curious.

"Aye," she replied, slightly stunned, the everyday word slipping out in the Northern brogue that had begun to recolor her speech at home. She quickly collected herself, a blush pinking her cheeks as she remembered where she was. "I mean, yes."

He chuckled at the slip and she smiled genuinely in return.

"Did you enjoy it?"

She felt pinned by the green gaze. He cocked his head, an irresistible gesture, like a good natured hound. _Hound_ , she thought, coming back to herself. Sandor was watching, and Jaime Lannister was flirting with her.

"I had not been home in a very long time. It was good to go back," she said, raising her goblet to her lips.

"Did you miss the capital?" he asked sleekly, a lilt of teasing in his voice.

"Of course I did," she replied gamely. "Especially the princess."

"She is very fond of you," he said seriously. "She talks of little else. The whole time you were away, she constantly asked when you would return. Have you seen her yet?"

"No, ser. We just arrived back today. I hope to see her tomorrow."

For a moment, she thought the conversation was over. She hoped that it was. Despite herself, she was enjoying his attention, the way his eyes rested on her appraisingly. He obviously liked what he saw. _Or rather,_ she thought darkly, _he wants you to think that he does_. He sat back a little, the candlelight making his golden hair glow, licking across his sharp cheekbones.

"We?" he asked lightly.

Lenna furrowed her brow. "Clegane was sent with me to White Harbor, of course."

"Poor company for a lady," Jaime said, looking at her from over the rim of his goblet as he raised it to his lips.

"He did his duty serviceably. I have been returned in one piece, as you see," she replied with a smile, gesturing along the length of her torso with a quirk of her brows.

Jaime smirked. "But not much of a conversationalist."

"Perhaps not," she replied, subduing the urge to look at Sandor, knowing that to do so would be a mistake. She was right to be wary of Jaime Lannister's attention. "I fear his bite is worse than his bark, though."

"You'd be right. Fearsome brute. I've seen him cut down men two and three at a time. All the while with this mad grin on his face. Quite formidable."

Lenna bit back a retort about his own reputation, knowing very well that Jaime Lannister had put his sword this his own king's back during the rebellion. Kingslayer, they called him. A man without honor.

 _Honor is such a complicated thing_.

"And your father?" he asked blithely. _Ah, here it is_.

"Older. More cantankerous than I remember."

"And your brothers? I believe I met both during the Rebellion."

"Much the same, though I suppose more interested in me now that I am older."

"Now that you have made a way for yourself." _Do you think you are sowing the seeds of doubt?_ She wondered how stupid they thought she was. _The dimmer the better,_ she thought cynically.

"I would not suspect family of such motives, but perhaps it is as you say," she replied diplomatically.

"And the city? Was it as you remembered?"

She plumbed her mind for a reply that would give him some bit of information they might want. "Clean as ever, the harbor was much busier than I recalled. Seems that the import trade is booming. My father has added almost three dozen new ships to his fleet since I left White Harbor."

"How long exactly have you been in King's Landing?"

"About six hours," she replied quickly, cocking her eyebrow and smirking at him. Jaime Lannister's brow quirked in genuine delight and he had the grace to laugh and bow his head in acknowledgement of the quip. Lenna was keenly aware of what was happening. The handsome knight had been tasked with winkling her. It was better to give him what he wanted than to possibly tip him off that she knew what he was up to.

"Is my brother interrogating you?" Tyrion called from across the table. He was three sheets to the wind, full of wine and rich food and reveling in the attention of his family.

"What an unkind word, my lord," she replied. "Ser Jaime was merely inquiring after my time in the North."

"Yes, the trip that nearly cost us this visit. I was so cross to find my sister had sent you North," Tyrion said, taking another deep swig of his wine and wagging a finger at the queen. Cersei looked less than amused.

"It was an overdue visit, my lord, though I am glad I returned in time to celebrate you," Lenna replied, raising her glass in a mock toast.

"I'd not have left without seeing you. Was it all you hoped it would be? Your home?"

Lenna paused before she answered, keenly aware that all eyes at the table were on her. "I think, my lord, that expectations of homecomings are bound to be painful. There is no going back, you see. People do not remain as you know them, any more than we stay the same. It was good to be among my family, but we now walk different paths."

"What do you mean?"

"It was clear to me that my place is here, however fond I am of my memories of my girlhood. Of White Harbor."

"Well said," the queen chimed in. "I know it grieves my father, but I have said so often enough myself, have I not?"

"You have," Tywin replied slowly. His cold eyes were resting on Lenna now, and she thought she saw a flicker of something in them that she couldn't name. Perhaps it was pleasure, perhaps suspicion.

"Casterly Rock will always hold a fond place in my memory," the queen continued, warming to her theme, "but my home is here in King's Landing. I am happy to hear your feel the same, Lady Helenna. I had worried."

"Your grace?" she asked, genuinely curious. She hadn't realized she warranted many of Cersei Lannister's thoughts.

"You sometimes seemed unhappy here. I am glad to hear otherwise." Her voice rang with sincerity that surprised Lenna.

"I am very satisfied with my life here, your grace," she replied carefully. "And I have you to thank for it."

"You have yourself to thank, Lady Helenna. We could not ask for a better teacher for our princess. She will be thrilled to see you tomorrow morning, you know." Cersei was beaming at her, a mother's pride flashing over her face. It was the most beautiful she'd ever looked in Lenna's eyes. _Pity._ "All we've heard since you left is 'when is Lenna coming back?' The child adores you."

"I have missed her as well," Lenna replied softly.

If a test had been set for her, surely she passed it, for there was no more mention of her travels for the rest of the evening. Tyrion was drunk on good Dornish wine, and he did require her to sing. She did as she was bid, taking requests from them, even forcing herself to sing _Rains of Castamere_ at Tywin's bidding. She didn't think the lord's eyes left her face the entirety of the song, and it was a feat for her to finish it without trembling. But his lips quirked in a wintry smirk and she felt the danger had momentarily passed.

When the evening at last drew to a close, Ser Jaime himself escorted her back to her door, taking her hand and saluting it gallantly while wishing her a good night. He waited until her door closed behind her, and she listened as the sharp report of his boots against the stone faded into the distance.

She wondered if this was how soldiers felt after a battle, bone-weary and yet restless. She didn't even bother to undress, she simply collapsed into bed, too exhausted to do anything but sprawl across the coverlet, praying for sleep.

Sandor XIV

He hadn't been released at the end of the party. He had felt it coming from the moment he got word he was expected. Of course they would call on him the day he returned from a four week mission. He'd spent the whole evening propped against a wall, fighting exhaustion and the desire to look at her.

She was wearing the red again. It had been years since he'd seen her in it last. He liked the way it fell against her skin, her hair. Just seeing her in the color made his blood rise in hunger. She'd coiled her hair around her head, though, and he didn't like it. It didn't look right, even with his ribbon plaited through it, the gray standing out sharply against her dark locks. Hair like hers should always be flowing, loose around her shoulders. He'd had to bite back a vision of her cloaked in nothing else, that mass of curls against pale skin. It wasn't right to think of such things, at least not in a room full of lions.

But nothing was right, and he felt that it wouldn't ever be again. He'd felt the shift it as soon as they'd stepped foot on the quay. As he led Stranger through the city, he mulled over his own regret. He felt that he'd squandered his time, the only thing he wanted from her, that he'd wasted it foolishly. He'd lashed out at her, had spent what little time he had with her doing penance, at once wishing to push her away and bind her to him as tightly as he was bound to her.

As soon as he'd strapped on his armor, a change came over him. He resented it, the strict confines of the plate, of his role. A lightness had taken up residence in his breast those past few weeks, even as the heaviness of his feelings for her settled over him. _Love_. He spat the word even when he merely thought it. _Fool cunt_. The armor and the helm only served to remind him that he was once again the Hound, and he had no time or opportunity for the pleasures he'd developed a taste for on their journey North.

He'd had to watch as she blushed and bantered with Jaime fucking Lannister. He despised the man for his cruel streak, for his betrayal of his vows, but now he hated him for making her laugh, for flattering her. And he hated her for letting her cheeks pink with pleasure, for enjoying the attention of the Kingsguard. He remembered the conversation between Tywin and the queen, when the old lord had said he was thinking of Lenna as a march for his eldest son. Vows could be repudiated, Jaime Lannister could take his place as heir of Casterly Rock, and she could stand beside him. The queen had laughed at the time, but he wondered if it wasn't something Tywin was thinking of again.

Jaime Lannister didn't look like he would mind. There was sincerity in his admiration, Sandor was sure of it. _Who wouldn't admire her_ , he thought darkly. He certainly did, and not just for how lovely she looked that night. He was apprehensive when she appeared, clearly reading the surprise on her face to find herself ensconced in what was clearly a family party. He had been shocked, too. She was the only one not sporting the name of Lannister, and that made his hackles rise in anticipation before she even stepped for in the room.

But she had done well. He had been afraid, then felt foolish for it. He didn't do her credit. She'd been playing her part for six years, she could put her costume back on. He'd seen her gather her ladyship around her just as she had her first day in Cersei's solar, only this time she was prepared. She didn't walk into that room without any precautions, she had walked in every inch Lady Helenna of White Harbor, a loyal Lannister servant.

He'd felt his chest swell with pride when she had cleverly inserted the information about her father's fleet into her banter with Jaime Lannister. She had identified his purpose and was gamely playing along. She didn't even need him to outline it for her, she was finding her footing. And he'd nearly guffawed at her retort when the Kingslayer had asked how long she'd been in White Harbor. He knew she had a wit, though she seldom whetted in public.

As torturous as it was, as wary as it was, he had felt pleasure in equal measure watching her handle herself like a seasoned courtier rather than a naive girl. While it had gladdened him, it also twisted the knife. One of the things he loved was her insistence on believing in goodness. Now there was something of a cynic about her that made his stomach turn. _Too much like you_.

Once she had left, escorted by fucking golden Jaime Lannister, Tywin's attention had turned to him quickly. The old lord had peppered him with questions, and he gladly told what he knew. It felt like a weight being removed from his chest, the burden of passing on that information. He wondered what Tywin would say if he knew that Wyman Manderly had supplied the details himself. He wondered if Tywin already knew what he was telling him, if this was some test of loyalty, or if he had merely been sent to corroborate.

At last, it seemed they would let him go, but as he moved to leave, Tywin's voice arrested him.

"Lady Helenna," the old lord said abruptly. "Did she mean what she said earlier?"

"My lord?" He turned and looked at Tywin, ice trickling through his veins.

"About her place being here. Did she mean it?"

So it had little to do with ships and garrisons. It had to do with seeing if Helenna Manderly was going to remain loyal. If Wyman Manderly was in line. It made him furious.

"She's not a liar, my lord."

"No, I didn't think she was. But was she trying to...please us? You know how young ladies can be."

"I don't believe so, my lord. She spoke often of the princess." _Not a lie_. She had talked about the princess. She'd told her nieces every little detail about her life in King's Landing, spinning it into a far more glamorous story than it was.

"And Wyman? How did he receive her?"

"She's his daughter, my lord, he was glad to see her. He clearly loves her dearly."

"Did they spend much time together?"

He wondered why he didn't just ask him if they'd formed a plot. It would be an easy answer: absolutely not. If Wyman Manderly had one, he'd not share it with his daughter and send her back to Tywin Lannister's den.

"She spent most of her time with her nieces." _Not a lie_.

"Her brothers?"

"Around, my lord, but not terribly interested in her being at home."

"What did you get up to, Clegane?" The old lord's eyes narrowed.

Lannister eyes had seen him on the wharf, in the ale houses. He wondered if they saw him sitting at the family table, too.

"The usual, my lord. The Manderly's are hospitable hosts, though."

"How so?"

"I was expected to break bread with them."

Tywin's eyebrow shot up in delight. _He did know_. "Always were an odd bunch."

"Aye, my lord."

Tywin seemed satisfied. After all, he'd gotten what he'd really wanted. He had already known that Wyman Manderly had a fleet of over a hundred and fifty ships, a garrison of three thousand men with many more bannermen besides, and the capability to manufacture fifteen ships a year. Now he knew he had a loyal hostage as well.

"I'd half expected the girl to stay," Tywin said softly.

"She'd not do that, my lord. As she said, her place is here."

"Like yours." It was a chilling reminder, Tywin's cold eyes holding fast to his.

"Yes, my lord," he rumbled darkly.

Tywin's lip quirked in a serpentine smile. With an inclination of the old lord's head, Clegane knew he was dismissed.

Myrcella's lessons began the following week. In the interim he found himself mooning, missing her. He felt ridiculous, looking forward to glimpses of her in the banqueting hall, in the passageways.

The first morning he stood against the wall as he always did and watched her, only it wasn't with fascination as it had been in the past. He watched her with the hunger of a man who wasn't sure when he'd have a meal again. She caught his eye, but he continuously found himself unable to hold her gaze, wary that she might see some evidence of his state of mind there.

For weeks it continued in this way, her smiles gradually fading. She still tried, but by the second month each attempt seemed melancholy. They hadn't properly spoken since they'd left the ship, and it seemed that she was wilting to him. It made him feel terribly guilty.

 _Your promise was to keep her safe, not happy_.

He had taken to sneaking in each afternoon she went to the Sept so he could watch her unawares, imagine that they were alone together. Strictly speaking, they were, only she didn't know he was there.

He'd spent above an hour torturing himself one morning when he turned to go.

"Wait."

Her voice seemed to hang in the air, echoing through the Sept. He froze, and he could barely detect the soft sounds of her slippers against the stone floor. She came to him on silent feet, slipping into the alcove where he had hidden himself.

"I knew it was you," she said quietly. "I hoped it was you."

A little thrill went through his gut to hear her say it even though he couldn't look at her.

"I...I've missed you," she said sadly. His eyes shot to her face, taking in as much detail as he could in the dark, his heart thundering.

"Aye," he agreed gruffly.

"I know it can't be as it was, but-" he voice trailed off and thickened.

"But what?" he prompted.

"Have I done something wrong?" Her voice was so sad and little. She was looking up at him with distress in her face. "You haven't spoken to me. You'll barely even look at me."

"I have a job to do."

She looked forlorn, her eyes narrowed with hurt in a way that made his chest clench. To his relief she nodded.

"I think I understand," she whispered. "But-"

"Yes?"

"Sandor," she said plaintively, and his stomach fell to hear his name on her lips again. "You're all I have. I can't continue on like this, so alone."

"You must," he replied. He wanted to put his hands on her shoulders, to lower his head and rest his brow against hers. Anything to take away the hurt he'd caused, necessary as it was for both of them.

"Alone?"

"Not alone," he said, swallowing hard. "You're never alone."

"Is there a way for us to...talk?"

She sounded like a lost child, disoriented and terribly sad. He closed his eyes and pushed down against the desire to pull her to him.

"Not in the way I think you mean," he said quietly. "We are not in White Harbor, Lenna."

When he said her name, her face bloomed. She looked up at him with eyes glowing, and he found it in himself to twist his lip at her.

"If I need you-"

 _Need me. Want me. Please._ "Leave the book on the table. The red one. But only if necessary. I'll come to the library at night, but we can't risk-"

"You'll come, though? If I need you?"

"Aye." _Another oath_.

She nodded, a small smile on her lips.

"Go now," he said, pulling away from her. Without realizing it, he had leaned so close he could feel her warmth radiating into his skin.

"Sandor, why have you been coming to the Sept?"

"To make sure you are safe." _Lie._

"Don't stop," she said quietly, and his heart began to race. "I don't want to be alone. I won't seek you out, just please, don't stop coming. I want to know you're here."

He nodded, swallowing thickly. She reached out and pressed his hand in both of hers then, turning to leave him. When she did, he proceeded to curse himself for his foolishness, pressing his forehead against the stone wall, wondering if she knew the real reason why he was hiding in the shadows, somehow knowing that she did. To his astonishment, he didn't care, so long as she wanted him there, he would take it.

A/N: So, I lied. THIS is the longest chapter yet. Ouf. And thank you for bearing with my typos. I promise I reread before I post, but sometimes I just don't catch them.

To answer at least one inquiry- never fear. This won't be over before AGOT starts. I already had 120,000 words written before I started posting, and I've added to that considerably because of the feedback from you fine folks. But, it will start incorporating whatever I please from the books or the show, and I make no apologies for taking what I want from either. Serves my selfish purposes. So, please keep the reviews coming. I get a little jolt of excitement every time I see a new notification!

Thank you again for your kinds words. Hold on to your hats, things are going to get even bumpier, but hopefully the payoff will be worth it.


	18. Chapter 18

297 AC

Lenna XV

She seldom called for him. Maybe six times in the following year. While he had pressed his lips and huffed that she didn't need him, she disagreed. She did need him. Though he had allowed them to settle back into their old ways of looks and smirks and quiet words around the princess, it wasn't enough. Even knowing he was there watching from the shadows over the Sept wasn't enough. She craved contact, lonelier than she had ever been before.

He'd appeared only once of his own volition, startling her and sending a full-bodied current of fire and ice through her. On her twenty-second nameday, he'd stepped into the circle of her lamplight, a parcel engulfed in his rough hand. It was the first time he'd slipped the package into her hand himself, and she had felt a flash of pleasure when his calloused fingers touched hers as he gave it to her. It was wrapped in plain parchment and twine, the same as all the others, another ribbon for her collection. Only this one was a dark crimson, like wine or blood, a complete departure from the cooler colors he'd brought her before. It made her flush, feeling there was some significance to the color she didn't quite understand. She had tied it into her hair at once, not missing the intense look on his face as he watched her take down the knot, letting it stream around her shoulders before she plaited the scarlet against the dark tresses with nimble fingers.

He'd stood so still she would have bet ten golden dragons that he'd wanted to touch it, and she knew that if he'd reached out she would have let him.

She didn't if there was any truth in the old adage about absence making the heart grow fonder, or if it was just that his absence made her realize how much he meant to her, but with each passing day the strange, quivering feeling in her belly grew and rose up, coursing through her until it was seated in her breast. She didn't want to name it, was in fact terrified to. Whatever it was felt impossible, and it could only make her more wretched.

He was still invaluable. When they would talk, she would often ask his advice in. He always seemed to have some idea of what to do. After Tyrion's banquet and their return from the North, she had been terrified that she would make some catastrophic misstep. However, once she'd proved willing to talk and Tyrion had left, it was like she'd never been sent home at all. She resumed her duties with the princess, the routine reestablished. Sandor convinced her that the best thing she could do was nothing, but rather watch and wait. As he did.

One curious thing did happen, though. One afternoon she had been studying in the library, reading about the Rebellion, actually, when Jon Arryn had walked into the library. He had gone directly to the shelves where the family histories were stored, not paying her a bit of mind. She let him look, but it became evident that he was frustrated in his search.

"Can I help you look for something, my lord?" she asked. He turned abruptly, his cold blue eyes looking back at her shrewdly.

"Lady Helenna," he said feebly. She felt a bolt of concern looking at him. Jon Arryn was not a young man, in fact he was older than both her father and Tywin Lannister. His cheeks were sallow and his sandy hair thin and wispy.

"If there's a book you want, I could help. Or ask the Maester."

"Don't trouble Pycelle," he responded quickly. He looked her up and down, the expression in his eyes still grave. "There's a lineage missing."

"Which one?" she said, curious. She rose from her table and crossed the space to him, crouching down to look at the shelves where the book of family lines should be.

"Maellon's book," he said quietly.

Lenna quickly scanned the shelf. She'd seen it there before, but the old lord was right. It was missing.

"It should be here," she said, laying her fingers in the gap.

"Has anyone taken it?"

"Not to my knowledge, my lord," she replied. "And I'm here more than anyone else. Could it be being updated? Recent births? If I see it, shall I bring it to you?"

Arryn looked down at her with calculation in his gaze.

"Your father. What does he really think of you being here?"

Lenna rose slowly from the floor. She and Lord Arryn were roughly the same height. It seemed to her that he was not a well man, but his voice had gained strength and he was looking at her in such a way that she felt he saw straight through her.

"What would think of your child being called away and not allowed to return home?" she countered softly. "You know my father, I think you can guess."

"Yet here you are," he replied.

"I could not deny the queen's orders any more than you could deny the king's, my lord."

Arryn exhaled a sour breath. "If you see it, bring it to me. Have a care to be discreet."

"Of course, my lord."

He nodded to her abruptly and wheeled about on his heel.

Lenna was left feeling shaky. She had answered none of his questions, but he seemed to understand her. She knew she had said too much, but she wasn't sure how much. His interest in the book was odd, especially if he was keen enough on it to ask her to bring it to him.

When weeks passed and nothing was said, she began to breathe easy again. Then, one afternoon as she was looking for a romance to while away some time, her fingers landed on something solid tucked behind the row of spines. It took some effort to draw the book out, and when she did, her heart began to speed up.

 _ **The Lineages and Histories of the Great Houses of the Seven Kingdoms, With Descriptions of Many High Lords and Noble Ladies and Their Children**_

Without another thought, she tucked it back behind the romances, taking the book she had wanted, and returned to her seat. When she rose to leave for dinner, she left the red book on the table, praying that he would see it that day.

She wasn't disappointed. He was already there when she arrived that night. His legs were stretched out to their full length as he sat on the window ledge, his hair falling about his face. He heard her come in, his gaze meeting hers as soon as she stepped into the little pool of light.

She felt quaky and off-kilter, and it must have shown on her face. In a trice, he had crossed the room on his long legs, standing just an arm's-length away.

"What's wrong," he asked lowly. "What has happened."

She looked up at him carefully. "Several weeks ago Lord Arryn came here-"

"Why did you not tell me before?" he demanded, his voice a sharp bark.

"I didn't think it was important," she replied. "People do come in here, you know."

He grunted, but his face was stormy.

"And?"

"He was looking for a book. But it was missing."

"What sort of book?"

"A lineage."

"A what?"

"It's a list, of the noble houses. It has the members' names, important dates, descriptions of their appearances and deeds. He was looking for one begun by Maester Maellon, but it wasn't in its place."

"Where was it?"

"I didn't know, until I found it today."

"Where?"

"Tucked behind the romances."

He smirked, but it was short lived. "You and your damned foolish knights."

"Sandor, he asked me to bring it to him. If I found it." At the time, it hadn't seemed that much of a request. Now, finding it hidden, not just misplaced, and she felt sure that it was important, perhaps even dangerous.

His eyes hardened. "Jon Arryn did?"

She nodded solemnly.

"What does he want with it?"

"I don't know, it isn't exactly interesting reading. Here," she said, turning to the stacks. She knelt in the row, removing the other books carefully before drawing it out. It was enormous, the thick stack of vellum bound in thick bundles to prevent tearing at the spine. She replaced the books that had concealed it and brought it to her table.

"See? It's just a list of names, of details." She turned the pages until she found her house. Her father and brothers were listed, as was she. "Here I am: 'Lady Helenna Manderly, born 276 AC in White Harbor. Dark of hair, green of eye. Resident of King's Landing from 290, tutor to the Princess Myrcella Baratheon.'"

"Not interesting at all," he retorted, but his voice was rich.

"I thought at first it had been taken to be updated. See, there's still room here for entries. I wonder if you are in here."

She flipped back to find House Clegane, the running black dogs of his sigil in sharp contrast with the yellow the scribe had used to illustrate their arms. It was a short entry, no more than six items long, but there he was. "'Sandor Clegane, born 271 at Clegane's Keep, Westerlands. Dark of hair, gray of eye. Burned. Bodyguard to queen Cersei Lannister, afterwards also to the royal children.'"

He looked uncomfortable when she'd read the word 'burned.' It had made something flare in her as well. Her eyes flicked to the entry on his brother, but she decided she'd rather not read it. He cleared his throat.

"What would Jon Arryn want with a book of lineage?" he asked.

"I have no idea," she replied. "I thought you might."

He shook his head. "It's important, if he wanted you to bring it to him if you found it. But I don't know why."

"He wanted to talk about my father, also," she said lowly, hesitantly. She was wary of his reaction.

"Did you?" he asked flatly. The expression on his face had gone steely.

"I answered as simply as I could. He is the Hand of the King," she replied lamely.

To her surprise, he nodded. "Jon Arryn is a good man. It's best not to lie to him."

She felt relieved to hear him say it. "How shall I get it to him?"

"I'll take it to him," he said lowly. "After the little grace's lesson tomorrow."

"Are you sure?"

"No one questions me," he answered. "They might wonder at you being in the Tower of the Hand, though."

She smiled up at him, and his features softened. He rose to leave, but she seized him by the elbow.

"Since you're here," she began, moving to the table. She'd brought a flagon of Dornish sour, knowing it to be his particular favorite, along with two goblets. She poured him a glass of the wine and then one for herself. "Stay a while. Please"

He nodded, taking up a position on the window ledge. He leaned his back against the casement and stretched one leg out to the floor, the other drawn up slightly on the cushions. She felt daring, wanting to be near him, knowing he sat like that so she couldn't get close. It made her heart thunder, but she wriggled in beside him and leaned against his shoulder. His arm wasn't really embracing her, but she could pretend it was. He kept his palm flat against the ledge, and she could see him pressing his fingers viciously into the stone.

 _He wants to touch you_ , she thought vaguely. _You're playing with fire._

She knew it was cruel to both of them, though she wasn't sure how cruel it was to him. She knew that she craved his warmth, the feeling of his strong shoulder beneath her head, the subtle movements of muscle in his chest. She wanted to smell him, feel the rise and fall of his breathing. It made her feel real pressed against him like that, even as the disconcerting ache filled her belly and moved lower, even as her breathing became a little shallower and her cheeks a little hotter. She'd had so many dreams of this since they'd returned from White Harbor, her unconscious mind calling out for that intimacy they'd had on the ship, the way he'd let her burrow against his warmth.

He didn't move away. He turned his body just a tiny bit to allow her to sink back into the curve of his torso. She shivered against him

"What are we reading, then?" he asked lowly. She shuddered just a bit at the feeling of his breath stirring her hair. He settled his head so that his cheek was grazing, but not quite touching, her temple. She could feel the whisper of his beard. Every part of her was calling out to him, willing him to close the distance and touch her skin to skin.

She could have been the one to do it, but she didn't have the courage. Instead, she cracked open the book and began to read of the knights he hated, dragons he scoffed at, and the ladies that made him go strangely still and silent, his breath hot against her cheek.

Sandor XV

He knew he shouldn't have let her lean against him like that. If someone were to walk into that library and find them, innocent as it really was, they'd both be punished. He didn't want her to be punished because he had no control over himself, because he wanted her pressed against him even if it was in such a childlike way. When she had settled against him, almost snuggling into his shoulder, he had wanted so badly to wrap one arm around her waist, and turn her face to him with the other. He wanted to spread the palm of his hand along the side of her face, to feel the lines of cheekbones, her jaw beneath his skin. She would be at such the perfect place for him to lower his mouth to hers. They would be inches away, her eyes so close to his, her breath on his cheeks, his lips, and he would only have to lean down ever so slightly.

Worse, he'd stopped being able to chase away those imaginings with thoughts of her rejecting him. He felt crazy to think it, he was sure he was delusional, but he was quite sure if he had tried to kiss her she wouldn't have pushed him away. That was even worse than believing that she would, his self-control hanging by a thread. Something in her eyes had changed, and there were moments where she looked at him almost bashfully. It gave him heart even as it gave him pain.

It wasn't the only change. Since their return, she had become a capital lady. She had taken to wearing her hair up, which he didn't like, but which he grudgingly admitted suited her. The curve of her long neck exposed to all, the sharp angles of her collarbones, the milky smoothness of her skin. He wondered if she knew she was beautiful now. She'd been a pretty girl when she'd come to King's Landing, but not showy like the court ladies. She still avoided rouge and kohl, though he didn't mind it when she did use them, in fact they made her mouth more alluring and her eyes more striking. She still dressed in her dark colors, but he had noticed that she'd begun wearing his red ribbon more than the green she'd previously favored. It had felt like a risk buying her something that color. It represented lust to him. When she wore that crimson gown, he was haunted by thoughts of it pooling on the flagstones of his room for days afterward. It was good that she wore it infrequently, or he would have long ago done something unpardonable.

It had been a year since he'd admitted to himself that the feelings he had for Helenna Manderly could be called love. As much as he hated himself for being so weak, so vulnerable to such a frivolous feeling, it also made him fierce. He'd always been protective of her, but now the very whisper of her name on rough lips was enough to raise murderous rage. Especially since he wasn't the only one who had noted that she'd grown into a bit of of a beauty. There were whispered comments in the barracks, and he'd punished more than one city guard for saying things he shouldn't.

Another lady, the queen even, and he'd have done nothing. It was only where _she_ was concerned that he was stirred to violence. No one seemed to notice, except for Barristan Selmy.

The old knight had seen him knock about a city guard one night in an alehouse after he'd said something lewd. The boy had fled to attend his purpling eye, and Sandor had sat down on the bench with a scowl that would terrify the gods.

"The lady is lucky she has such a champion," Barristan had said drily.

Sandor looked at him from over the rim of his tankard. "He was out of line."

"Most men are in alehouses after duty."

"Doesn't give him the right to talk about a lady like that."

The old knight chuckled, knowledge in his eyes. "I didn't know you were so concerned with honor, Clegane. I'm surprised. Pleasantly so. I wonder, does the lady know?"

Sandor hadn't responded, and the old knight had drained his cup with a smirk and a chuckle. When he passed Sandor on his way out of the alehouse, he clapped him on the shoulder in a familiar way that made Sandor's blood boil in anger.

It was boiling now, too, not in rage but in anticipation. When she left him the night before, he had yearned for her warmth beside him. He'd returned to his bunk and tried to recall how it felt to have her curled up against him. She frequently laid her head on his shoulder, but this had been different. She was seeking comfort, not because she was upset, but because she wanted to be next to him. It made something in his chest grow until he thought he'd burst from it.

She smiled brilliantly at him when she entered the children's breakfast room the next morning. She was wearing blue, the red ribbon wrapped around her hair. Her cheeks were rosy and her eyes were sparkling, and she looked _happy_. He wondered if he had anything to do with it. He hoped he did.

The morning passed uneventfully. After he had borne Lenna back to the nursery with Myrcella, he'd returned to the library and tucked the book under his arm and hefted his cloak over that shoulder.

He wasn't quite sure what he was doing. When Lenna had told him that Jon Arryn had come looking for something, suspicion had fallen over him like a mantle. He liked the Hand, thought him a just man, but he didn't want Lenna tangled up in his business. She was a Lannister woman, and he'd not have the queen getting wind that she had aided the King's Hand, even if it were something so dull as bringing him a book.

He rather hoped his appearance with the book would be enough of a warning to Jon Arryn as well. Whatever the man wanted with the book, even if it was innocent research, he wanted him to know that Helenna Manderly was off limits. Arryn would know immediately that Lannister eyes were on him if it was the Hound who delivered the tome and not the girl.

The guards stood aside for him without question, just as he'd known they would, and when he entered the Hand's study, Jon Arryn looked up at him in open confusion, whipping his spectacles off his nose.

Sandor scowled down at him, but he turned and pointedly shut the heavy door. When he turned, Arryn had stood behind his desk and his face was ablaze with indignation.

"What business do you have here, Hound?" he demanded, leaning over his desk, resting on his knuckles.

Sandor didn't speak, but he pulled the book out of his cloak and threw it on the man's desk without dropping his eyes. He pointed to it with his gauntleted hand.

"Delivery."

Jon Arryn looked down at the book, and a creeping realization spread over his face.

"She sent you?"

"I sent myself," he replied. He approached the Hand, getting so close to the man that the only barrier between them was the desk itself. He could feel the edge of it digging into his legs. "Leave her be."

He saw a flash of intimidation in the old man's eyes.

"Don't threaten me, dog," he said lowly.

"I'm not threatening you, my lord," he replied deliberately. "I'm simply telling you to leave Helenna Manderly be."

"The girl-"

"Is servant to the queen. Do you want to get her in trouble, treating her like your librarian? You want something, get it yourself."

"I didn't ask Lady Helenna-"

"Not what she told me," he replied, his voice deadly quiet. The older man straightened up. "I don't know why you wanted it, and I don't really fucking care, but whatever it is, keep her out of it."

The other man looked at him stonily.

"I would hate to let it slip to the queen that you were asking her daughter's tutor to sneak around for you."

It was a threat, and he knew it, but the Hand didn't react to it. The older man looked at him with ill-concealed disdain. It didn't bother him, many people people looked at him that way. He didn't even mind threatening the man, even if he admired him. His job was to keep her safe, and he didn't trust the Hand enough to believe the man wouldn't talk.

"Did she show you?" the man asked.

Sandor cocked his head. "Show me what?"

"What is in there."

Sandor nodded. "She did. Found herself in there, and me. Don't know why you went to such a length for a book of lineages."

"Did you read any of the other entries?"

"No," he replied. "Should I have?"

The Hand regarded him warily. Sandor continued to look back.

"Well," the old man barked. "You did what you were bid to do. Best run back to them, now."

"Who is 'them'?"

"You know very well who I'm talking about," the Hand replied. Sandor frowned and nodded.

"Very well."

"Good boy."

The Hand was lucky Sandor Clegane didn't consider him a worthwhile opponent. Another man, and armed man, would have paid for that with at least some blood, if not a limb or his life. He yanked the door open and let it slam against the wall, striding out down the passageways and back to Maegor's Holdfast. His thoughts were a morass. He wasn't comforted by his brief tangle with the Hand of the King. Something was very wrong, and there was something very significant in that book. He cursed himself for not reading through it, trying to suss it out, but he had been so concerned with keeping Lenna out of it that he hadn't even thought to look.

On the other hand, he didn't want to know. The less he knew about the machinations of the powerful, the better he'd be able to protect her. He didn't want to be wrapped up in their business any more than he had to be. He missed the days when his greatest worry was whether or not she would catch him looking at her. Now he had to worry about whether she was being used as a pawn in some bigger game that neither of them understood.

Jon Arryn had confirmed one thing, however. There was something going on between the Lannisters and the Crown. He wondered if King Robert were even aware of it, doubting it greatly. The man, genial as he was, was a drunk and a layabout. He left most of the serious business of statecraft to his Hand, spending his time whoring and hunting and swilling beer. Whatever it was that was brewing wasn't an external threat, rather it was coming from inside the walls of the Red Keep itself.

 _Time_ , he thought. _Only time will tell_. It frustrated him that there was nothing he could do, that he was forced to simply wait. He thought again about Wyman Manderly's hurricane, thinking that he could see the darkening edge of the stormwall looming, but it was still just out of his range of vision.

A/N: As always, thank you to everyone who is writing reviews! And to those who are have followed and favorited! This has been a rough couple of weeks, and seeing your kind words and interest has been a bright spot in my personal hurricane. I love feedback, period, and you all have been so extraordinarily kind. Keep reviewing. Pretty please!

Ya'll- bear with me for approximately five more chapters to bring our friends where we want them to be. In the long game, the waiting is necessary. I wasn't kidding, I have this thing plotted through Season 7. Not trying to dangle a carrot, but...definitely dangling a carrot. Do they count as spoilers if they're about your own work? Anyways, apologies if those hints ruin anything for anyone.

Review! Please! Y'all are amazing.


	19. Chapter 19

298 AC

Lenna XVI

It was Prince Joffrey's nameday. She had been dreading this day for weeks, knowing that she would be expected to attend the tourney with the little princess. A tourney for a lad's nameday seemed excessive even for a prince, but it was King Robert who had demanded it, despite the disgruntled mumblings of his Master of Coin.

She had been unexpectedly privy to the conversation during an evening meal. She had remained after the children had gone to talk with Jaime Lannister. They had developed a cordial acquaintance since Tyrion's nameday banquet two years before. He made an obvious effort to speak with her when their paths crossed, which seemed to both please and annoy his queenly sister. He'd even surprised her by irregularly appearing in the library, choosing books on economics and history, though it seemed to her that he was more interested in being somewhere quiet than he was in study. They talked about what he was reading, and he, like Tyrion, always brought wine. She appreciated him for it, enjoying the company and the exquisite Arbor strongwines in which he tended to indulge. The books often fell into his lap and he'd take to staring into space. It made her smile to see him like that, usually so carefully constructed, though she felt sympathetic as well. It was obvious that Ser Jaime Lannister was a man of unspoken burdens, and she wondered what they were.

He had a wicked and sharp sense of humor, always ready for a laugh at someone's expense. It wasn't his most attractive quality, but Lenna relished being included in his mirth. Jaime had been making a pithy comment about one of his sister's ladies when they both had their attention seized by King Robert's booming voice.

"I don't care how much it costs, he gets a tourney," he roared. Little Petyr Baelish closed his eyes and wet his lips. Lenna detested the sight of the man, with his pointed chin and crafty eyes. Every time they met, Lenna felt like she had been coated with a thin layer of oil despite his impeccable manners.

"Your grace, we are already in debt to-" Baelish said, his voice cajoling and smooth even as his face was hard.

"Cersei," the King demanded, turning to his wife. The queen didn't look back at him, instead raising her goblet to her lips in resignation.

"I am sure his grandfather would be more than happy to loan whatever you need," she replied evenly. When she looked over at Jaime, there was something almost mercenary in her gaze.

The Kingsguard had cleared his throat, raising his golden brows at Lenna, trying to turn her attention back to their earlier conversation, but it didn't sit well with her. It must have concerned him as well, a little notch appearing on his perfect brow. Neither of them were easy for the rest of the evening, and they parted soon after.

Tyrion was set to visit for Joffrey's tournament, and she decided to wear the red gown seeing as how well he liked it. She knew Sandor like it as well, his eyes settling on her with more than their usual frequency when she wore it, and for good measure she plaited his red ribbon into her hair. The maid coiled the thick braid around her head, and she dabbed rouge on her lips and cheeks and lined her eyes. She'd adopted the style since her return from the North two years before. Her position brought her increasingly closer into the royal circle, and she had decided it was in her best interest to look the part of a lady. She still had her unusual reputation, the predilection for subdued colors and quieter ways, but she had a role to play that felt increasingly less like herself.

The morning of the tourney found she and Sandor waiting in the children's breakfast room. He was standing at a window, looking about as excited as she did. When she entered, he looked her up and down with a quick flick of his eyes and a curl of the lip.

"We all know who you'll be cheering for," he said in a flat rumble.

She looked down at herself, wondering what he meant.

He answered her without her even having to ask. "Lannister red. Don't you know that Ser Jaime will wear the white of the Kingsguard?"

"Oh, I hadn't even thought of it," she replied, and it was true. Of course, she wanted Ser Jaime to do well that day. He was everyone's favorite to win, but it had never occurred to her that her choice of gown would be construed as a vested interest in the outcome of the tourney. It was too late to change, and she figured people assuming it was to support to the Lannister Kingsguard, and his family, wouldn't go entirely amiss.

Except for the fact that Sandor, always confusing and consuming, was clearly angry with her for it. He was making an effort to bite back his ire, evidenced by the pulsing muscle along his already taut jaw.

She'd continued to summon him to the library sporadically, and each time they'd find themselves leaning together on the windowsill as she read. He never touched her, not with his hands. He kept them flat on the stone or occupied with a goblet, not repeating the gentle touches of White Harbor. During those times, something between them stretched pleasurably, as if there were some invisible web between them that tightened and drew them nearer. It was always with resignation that they parted, but he never said a word to her or sought her out on his own.

Now, his gaze simmered as he took in the dress, his eyes flying to his red ribbon in her hair. Oddly, the usual look of satisfaction wasn't there. The red ribbon usually made his face sharpen with brutal delight, but his eyes were hollow as he looked at her, dark with hidden indignation, like she'd done something to purposefully affront him. She might have been offended or contrite if she didn't immediately see it for what it was, and she might have smirked if she'd not been holding his eyes. The source of his fury came to her like an arrow to a bullseye: he was jealous.

She was about to say something to try and placate him, something mundane perhaps, when the children were brought in. Myrcella was a flutter of pink and yellow, her sun-bright hair streaming around her giddy face. She was growing into a beautiful child with a brilliant disposition, and Lenna readily accepted her excited hug, moving to entertain her while they broke their fast, quite forgetting Sandor's dark brooding.

There wasn't another opportunity to talk to Sandor, but they both made their way to the tourney grounds with the family, his face still dark with sullen anger. Cersei took Myrcella with her in the litter, but Lenna preferred to walk. Tyrion had joined them, having arrived late the evening before, and she slowed her gait to his, deciding to ignore Sandor's version of a temper tantrum. It was quite a trek, but she was grateful for the sunshine and the chance to stretch her legs before she had to spend the day on a hard wooden bench, and she enjoyed Tyrion's sardonic stories about his latest activities.

She was not permitted in the royal box, of course, but her seat was the be in the front row. Tywin was already there when they arrived, and Tyrion appeared beside him. He took one look at the arrangement and pulled up his chair so he could easily turn and speak with her. Sandor took up his position in the rear of the box, scanning the crowd and pointedly ignoring her.

"What could cause the Hound to be so exceptionally upset with you?" he said lowly. "He's usually panting at you. Isn't he your particular friend?" His suggestive inflection on the last words irritated her. Tyrion generally shared his sister's disdain for their guard, something which Lenna felt indicated a rather gaping deficit in his otherwise delightful personality.

Lenna looked at Tyrion steely-eyed. "Not today, apparently."

"That color is always so becoming on you," Tyrion said with a smile, raking his eyes over her in the way he knew annoyed her. He popped a handful of grapes in his mouth from the bowl beside him. "Cheering for my brother, then?"

"It was a coincidence, but of course I hope Ser Jaime does well."

"As do I. And my sister. To the tune of fifty thousand dragons. How much have you got riding on him?"

"Sorry?" she asked, bewildered.

"No bets placed? Gods, what's the point of a tourney if no money is to be won. Otherwise, they're rather tedious, don't you think."

"I think they're tedious either way," she replied drily.

"You would," he smirked. "Priss."

She rolled her eyes at him, which made him cackle.

"Look, here comes Jaime," Tyrion said, leaning over the railing. His brother was at the end of the tiltyard, resplendent in his Kingsguard armor, his mount hung in white.

He easily beat his opponent after two runs, and when he made his round before the royal box, he spared a wink for her. She blushed to the roots of her hair.

"I'm beginning to think my brother likes you," Tyrion said with a chuckle.

"Is that so hard to believe?" she retorted. If she were quite honest, she rather liked Jaime, too. He flirted with her, and she enjoyed it even though she didn't believe he meant anything by it. He flirted with everyone.

"No, not at all," he replied seriously, his expression suddenly appraising. She felt tetchy, turning away from him and trying to focus on the contests.

A young knight entered the lists, and from the reaction of the crowd he was a favorite. He had yet to place his helm, his handsome face surrounded by a plethora of fair curls swarming around his face like bees. She could see the white flash of his teeth even from her seat, and he was gesturing and bowing to the crowd, working them up into a frenzy of excitement."

"Ah, the Knight of the Flowers, Ser Loras Tyrell."

"Handsome," she said with a quirk of a brow.

"Renly thinks so," Tyrion replied, grinning into his cup. Lenna opened her mouth in a startled o, a laugh chortling its way out.

He was set against one of Walder Frey's sons, which one Lenna didn't know and didn't really care to know. She had heard the old lord's grating voice behind her and had purposefully not turned around lest he meet her eye. She wondered absently if his son Emmon was there. Really, she wondered if it was Genna Frey's eyes she could feel boring into her back.

Ser Loras lowered his helm and came galloping down the field, neatly striking his foe and taking his lap around the grounds. His lance had not splintered, and they repeated the dance again, this time the tip shattering and the younger Frey losing his seat, crashing to the ground. The crowd leaped to its feet in applause, and Lenna was surprised to find herself on her own with them

She attended carefully to Ser Jaime's jousts as well as the young Knight of the Flowers, but the others were tedious. The afternoon dragged on and on. Not even the goblets of wine Tyrion passed her or their conversation did much to alleviate her boredom. Finally, the last tilt was set. It had come down to Jaime Lannister and the young Loras Tyrell.

To everyone's surprise, and the consternation of many, Loras Tyrell carried the day. Jaime acknowledged his defeat humbly, shaking the other man's hand and presenting him to the crowds. The masses would have been happy with either, she thought. A wreath of white roses was placed on his head, and Lenna felt gleeful for a moment that the color had been chosen for the intended victor, the Kingsguard and Kingslayer Jaime Lannister

She was clapping and laughing with Tyrion, wryly pointing out the fact that the white roses had been robbed from him, when Tyrion's face took on a look of utter surprise.

Ser Loras Tyrell had stopped his mount in front of her and was extending the crown of roses to her.

Lenna looked at the young man, wondering what on earth he was doing. He had to have been five years her junior at least, but she knew better than to argue, reaching out and seizing the crown with a gay peal of disbelieving laughter. He made a courtly salute to her and rode on his way.

Tyrion quirked an eyebrow at her as she looked at wreath in her hands.

"You've a new admirer, it seems," Tyrion teased.

"What on earth was the boy thinking?" she said. "Presenting an old maid with such a thing."

"You aren't that old," Tyrion said seriously.

"The spinster tutor of the royal princess, unmarried at twenty-two," she jeered. "I suppose I should enjoy it. Surely, it will never happen again."

She put the damn thing on her head, turning to Tyrion with a smugly sarcastic grin, and against her will she glanced at Sandor. He briefly met her eye, but when he looked away he looked bitter and angry. Lenna's fingers went to the wreath, trailing against the petals as the momentary humor shrivelled and evaporated.

There was a bit of a commotion in the royal box, hushed but angry voice, then the queen rose sharply and stormed out of the royal box.

"These things truly bring out the best in people," Tyrion said sardonically, rising to follow his sister. Lenna trailed after him.

They returned to the Keep to prepare for the banquet. She sat in Cersei's solar with the princess as her mother paced. Myrcella was in awe that Lenna had been given the victor's crown, and Lenna was more than happy to let her wear it as she flitted about the solar, pretending Loras Tyrell had extended it to her instead. Sandor stood against the wall as was his custom, looking at Lenna from under the fall of his hair. His eyes were dark with fury.

Jaime Lannister entered the solar and his sister looked at him with rage in her eyes.

"Don't look at me like that, Cersei, the boy rode well," he said diffidently. "I can't win them all."

"He wasn't supposed to unseat you," she said.

"It's a bloody tourney. What was he going to do? Forfeit for no reason? He came to compete, so he did. As did I. It happens."

"I lost-"

"I lost a hundred dragons," he laughed. "I'm not sore about it. I suppose it's my comeuppance for betting on myself." he replied, shooting Lenna a smirk. She was inclined to agree. "Lady Helenna certainly looked fetching with her roses."

"However inappropriate they may be," she said. Myrcella plopped them back on her head. They were beginning to look a little worse for wear, the outer petals wilting and tinged with brown.

"Not inappropriate at all. A victor can select any woman he wishes to be his queen of love and beauty."

"Even this old maid," she replied sardonically. "Who am I to argue with Ser Loras."

Cersei was barely calm by the time they went into the banquet. Lenna was seated far down the table with the children as usual, but she had a good view of the room. For once, she didn't mind her vantage point. Instead of worrying about being watched, she was enjoying watching. She didn't miss it when Petyr Baelish approached the queen and with a smarmy smile presented her with an emerald brooch. She recognized it as one the queen favored wearing. It took but a trice to figure out that she'd lost it one a bet. At first Cersei protested, but in the end she accepted with pleasure on her face.

After the meal, the benches and tables were taken out to make room for dancing. Lenna knew she'd be called on to go down the first dance with Ser Loras. He appeared for her right on time, and she admitted that she like the young man. She also fully believed Tyrion's insinuation that Ser Loras' taste ran in a rather more masculine direction by the time the dance was over. She wondered why he had picked her, deciding that perhaps he'd simply wanted to pick someone, anyone, and she fit the job well enough.

It surprised her when Jaime Lannister begged the next dance. He rarely danced, even more rarely than she did. He was unsurprisingly agile and she enjoyed herself, laughing at his cheeky commentary in her ear.

Then a young Frey appeared, and she danced with him out of politeness. Afterward, another Frey lad bowed and extended a hand, followed immediately by yet another of his kinsmen. She was beginning to wonder if they had all formed a queue, but she was finally able to beg a break after the third.

She was hot and lightheaded, thirsty for water and knowing she'd get none. She tried to stand out of the way, wishing very much that she could go back to her room, instead finding a refreshment table and throwing back a goblet of wine. The wine was hardly sufficient, she was so thirsty, and she was surprised when a gloved hand extended another.

The man who held it out to her was older, with a rough face and a graying beard. His eyes were kind, and he smiled a little as he held out the goblet to her.

"Thank you, ser," she said quietly, noting immediately that the fingers on his left hand were shorter than they should have been.

"My pleasure, my lady," he replied, putting both hands behind his back and taking in the room again. "You look like you needed a breather."

She laughed. "I do, truly. I have never been so popular before."

"You've hardly sat down."

"You don't have to tell me, Ser…"

"Davos. Davos Seaworth."

"I'm…"

"Helenna Manderly," he replied quickly. "I've heard plenty of people talking about you."

She must have looked shocked.

"All favorable, I assure you. You apparently have many admirers."

"I don't know about that," she replied.

"Tyrion and Jaime Lannister both seem very taken with you, as does Tywin. The latter is a bit of a surprise. And Ser Loras Tyrell. Game of you to dance with him, I could tell you didn't want to."

"Could you?"

"Of course. I get the feeling that none of this is what you want to be doing. You wouldn't be wearing that crown if you had your druthers."

"You'd be right," she allowed with a wry smile.

"And that one's certainly not happy about it," Ser Davos said, nodding toward Sandor. She looked up just in time to see him look away. "He's been watching you all night."

"It's his job, you see," she said quietly. "I'm tutor to the princess, and he's our guard."

"Ah, that's right. Fine girl, isn't she?"

"She is," Lenna said proudly. "She's bright and sweet and everything a princess should be."

"Uncanny how like her mother she is," Davos said lightly.

"Aye, but the same could be said for me."

"She must be a beautiful woman," he said, looking at her seriously.

"She was," she replied with a small smile.

"I'm sorry," he said gruffly.

"Thank you. I am so like her, people say I could be her twin. Except for the eyes. I have my father's eyes."

"But none of the children take after Robert at all. Strange," Davos replied.

"How so?" she asked curiously.

"Seems like dark coloring trumps fair, doesn't it? Stannis' little girl, Lady Shireen, her mother is fair. She had the dark hair of her father."

"Surely it doesn't always work out like that. My brother Wylis is fair and my mother was as dark as I am."

Ser Davos looked like he was about to respond, but he halted abruptly and bowed low.

"Lady Helenna."

Lenna turned to face the queen with a deep curtsy and a smile.

"Your grace."

"Don't tire yourself out, my dove. We'll leave in the morning."

"Your grace?" she replied in surprise.

"I have decided it is time to visit my home. We'll start for Casterly Rock at first light." Cersei began to sweep from the hall, pausing briefly to turn back. "Clegane, see Lady Helenna back to her chambers."

"Of course, your grace," he rumbled, surprisingly close behind her shoulder.

She looked back to Ser Davos with an apologetic smile.

"An adventure, my lady," he said lowly.

"Yes, something like that," she replied, downing the wine he'd proffered him. "It has been a pleasure, Ser," she said, bobbing a curtsey.

"Safe travels, my lady," he replied, and she could feel his eyes on her as she went.

Sandor stayed slightly behind her shoulder as they walked. She didn't care for it when he did that. She had to crane her neck back and up to look at him. She purposefully shortened her stride, but she was surprised when he bumped into her, the force of the collision nearly knocking her off her feet. He must have been distracted. The wreath of roses became dislodged, falling to the floor in a shower of petals.

He stooped to pick it up, giving it back to her with a snarl on his lips. She took it, but didn't move to replace it.

"I'm surprised it made it this long without falling apart. Flimsy thing," she said, looking down at the ruined flowers in her hand. "I'm glad I don't have to wear it anymore."

"Seemed to enjoy it," he said darkly.

She smiled. "I admit that I did."

"Made a fool of yourself, dancing with every man who asked you, wearing a crown of flowers like some daft girl."

She felt like he'd dealt her a physical blow, her cheeks burning hot like he'd slapped them. He'd been annoyed, even angry with her before, but he had never been explicitly hurtful.

"It would have been impolite for me to refuse," she said lowly, the pleasure of the evening quickly draining, looking down at the brown, wilted flowers again.

"And you always do just what they fucking want you to do."

She looked up at him slowly. "Isn't that what you told me to do? To play my part? To never forget my loyalty lies with them?"

"With the Lannisters, not with every fucking knight who asks you to dance. Don't pretend that you didn't enjoy it, acting like a stupid, foolish idiot as soon as one of those perfumed cunts looked at you. One hint of flattery-"

"No more," she exploded. "I am many things, Sandor Clegane. I may be naive, and I may be too trusting, as you have long criticized, but I am not stupid, or a fool, or an idiot. Never would I have thought that you, of all people, would stoop to call me such things just because you're jealous."

She spun away from him, hurrying down the corridor as fast as she could without running. She heard him keeping pace with her, barely having lengthen his stride.

"Lenna."

She ignored him.

He reached out and grabbed her elbow. "Lenna, I'm-"

"No," she said forcefully, wheeling away from his grasp. "I don't want to hear it. How dare you talk to me like that, like I've done something wrong when I haven't. You're right. I did enjoy it, Sandor. I enjoyed being admired and asked to dance. It's not something I've ever been able to enjoy before. What woman wouldn't like it? As you say, I'm no girl. Was is so awful for me to have just one evening where I got to be treated like any other lady might? To be admired and flattered-"

"Fucking poncey knights," he thundered, the half-formed apology he'd been attempting to make dissolving into his anger.

She turned again, praying that the passage would shorten itself and they'd arrived faster. She was fuming. _How dare he_ , she raged. It had been two years, two bloody long years, since their return from White Harbor, since they'd formed that odd understanding of each other. Nothing had come of it. He no more cared for her then than he did before, at least not to show it. She knew he was jealous, but he never acted on it. If she were to look elsewhere for such attention, it was his own fault.

She yanked open her door, looking forward to slamming it shut in his face, surprised when he wedged his boot in it to prevent her from doing so.

"Leave me be," she hissed.

"Lenna, please-" his voice was genuinely contrite, and she could hear a tremor in it she hadn't heard before.

"I said leave me be, dog." It came out unbidden, without a thought, but she was immediately horrified to have said it.

She whirled to face him, and she felt absolutely abominable when she saw the expression on his face. There was no anger, no ire or protest or rage, just abject humiliation and hurt. His eyes had gone entirely blank, but she could see a tremble in his jaw as he drew himself up to his full height.

"My lady," he said tightly, nodding deeply. The closest he came to a bow. She wanted to run to him, to throw her arms around his neck and tell him she didn't mean it, but she couldn't. She let him close the door behind him, listened as his boots echoed down the hall with quick report.

She hurled herself onto her bed like a petulant girl and stared at the canopy. Hot tears pushed their way out from her eyes as she nursed the hurt done to her and the hurt she had done.

Sandor XVI

He didn't want to follow her. He was returning from relieving himself in the woods outside the camp when he spied her slipping across the meadow. She was so pale she practically glowed, her hands like marble as they clutched her dark cloak shut at the neck.

They had been nearly two weeks on the road. In all that time he had barely looked at her, riding in the escort astride Stranger, his visor down to deter anyone from trying to speak to him. She had been riding in the wheelhouse, and as much as he wanted to hate her, he wondered how she was faring, trapped in that infernal space with Cersei and Tyrion Lannister for days on end, jealous of the Imp for getting to be with her, wondering if she was laughing with him.

She had been right the night of the tourney. He had been intensely, painfully, jealous. To have watched as Loras Tyrell, young and handsome and whole, had given her that wreath of roses, led her in a dance, with her cheeks glowing, eyes sparkling, lips laughing. She had been so beautiful it made him ache, and then to have to stand there while man after man, knight after knight, claimed her in a way he couldn't have even if he'd wished to was unbearable.

And he'd taken his own feelings out on her, exulting in laying her low, saying things he'd never thought he'd say, not to her. She had shrivelled and her eyes had narrowed, and she had seen right through him. He had hurt her deliberately.

And then she'd called him a dog, and it had worked as effectively as striking a cur, forcing him to retreat with his tail between his legs.

And then she had ignored him. She avoided his person and his eye for two weeks, sequestering herself with them even though he knew she must be about to run mad. He knew what she was doing and where she was going as soon as spotted her. There was a tree on a little grassy knoll about a quarter mile away. He'd noted it himself, thinking he might go there to sit and think and be alone. Probably get drunk. He'd spent the better part of the last fortnight alone, nursing that wound, the sound of her voice calling him a dog echoing in his ears. He wagered her could recall it exactly, in pitch and volume. In eight years, she had never once demeaned him in that way, her lip always curling in revulsion when the queen or the prince or some other lordling lobbed it at him. Now, she was the one turning it on him, and for the first time in almost twenty years it fucking hurt.

He cursed rather colorfully under his breath, wishing he could turn away. He couldn't, so he gathered his anger around him and followed after her, sticking to the tree line to avoid drawing attention to himself. Not that it would have mattered, his reputation was such that no one would have said a word to him, let alone challenged him

As he strode across the meadow, he became more and more irate. What the fuck the girl was thinking walking off into the night he didn't know. It made his heart pound with fear. He could only protect her if she followed the rules, if she told him what she was planning. It had served them well for eight years, and this stunt made him wonder how often she'd crept away before without his knowledge. How often she'd risked herself. She was too old to make such a mistake, and he fully intended to let her feel his temper again, even if it turned her from him forever. He knew these parts intimately, knew the creatures that inhabited these woods, the wolves and the damned lions. She didn't, but it was no excuse. After all they had been through, to risk her safety on a moonlit stroll was the daftest, stupidest thing he could imagine. It made him furious that she would do something so idiotic. Better she never speak to him again than be killed by her own stupidity.

It terrified him that he could lose her over something as ridiculous. As much as she had hurt him, he could not shake his duty. She was his to protect, and, by the Seven, he would keep her safe.

He stalked through the tall grass, his fists clenched, but all his fire fled when he found her. There was the old, gnarled tree on a knoll, and she had made a seat among its roots. She was sitting there silently, her head tipped back to look at the sky, her face a sad pale moon. She looked almost gaunt, her face hauntingly lovely with her dark lashes spilled across her cheeks, the sleek slash of her brows on her brow. She'd always been beautiful, but drenched in starlight she was the most bewitching thing he'd ever seen. If he'd had pretty words he might had said she looked like night itself come in the form of a maid with stars for eyes.

 _Not a poet, any more than I am knight._

The angry words he'd been brewing evaporated and instead he'd stood dumbstruck in the shadow, watching her until he realized he had forgotten how to breathe again. It happened more than he wanted to admit whenever he looked at her. Given how things stood between them, it made him hate himself with an even deeper passion. _She kicks you, and you'd still die for her._ He didn't know how long he'd stood there, but it was long enough for him to know he needed to make himself known.

"You shouldn't be here," he said quietly. She started, her body become taut with tension.

"Leave me be," she said lowly, her voice tired, her eyes averted.

"Can't do that," he replied. "Let's get you back to camp."

"No." The iron from their argument was still lacing her voice.

He couldn't see her face, it was turned from him, but he thought it likely she was scowling. _Like you_. It made his hackles rise, so he did the thing he thought she'd least expect. He sat down beside her in the grass, looping his enormous arms around his knees.

"What are you doing?" she asked tightly.

"If you won't go back to camp, then I'll have to stay to fucking guard you," he bit back, looking out over the fields, searching for glinting eyes of lions or wolves.

"Don't feel obligated," she replied airily, turning her back to him once more.

He didn't even try to reply, feeling the growl low in his chest and deciding not to risk it. The last time he'd felt that rumbling, when the damned roses had fallen at his feet, he'd lost his temper and said things he shouldn't have. It had been such a terrible day, kept from the tourney, then forced to watch as she, decked in Lannister red, was admired and flattered by better men than he. Jaime Lannister had smirked and winked at her, and it had made his blood simmer, but when Loras Tyrell, looking like one of the illustrations in her damn book, had presented her with those damnable roses he had wanted to kill something. Later, when the knight's arms were wrapped around her in a dance, he'd wished he were a different man, that he could have challenged the nancy right then and there in front of everyone and no one would have laughed. They would have known she was his.

The silence stretched between them, and it felt like pulling a newly-healed wound, tearing and sharp and vicious.

"Lenna," he said softly. Her head raised up, turned toward him ever so slightly. "Lenna, I shouldn't have said those things."

"I don't want to hear it," she said lowly, but he detected the tremor in her voice that said otherwise. It took a lot of effort to swallow his pride, but he tried.

"No, you don't, but I didn't mean it."

"Then you wouldn't have said it," she replied harshly. "A friend-"

"What do you want me to do?" he asked, hearing the own tone of pleading in his voice. It chastened him, even more than he was already chastened. "I can't take it back. I'm sorry. Of course you deserve to be...admired." It took all of his resolve to say the last.

"And I never wanted to call you dog," she said, and he heard tears thick in her voice. "Sandor, I'm so very sorry, I don't know what came over me, I hate myself for calling you that, I never-"

"It's alright," he said, his own throat working. It bothered him how much it had hurt, how he had retreated without a fight as soon as she landed that blow.

"It's not," she wailed, turning to him fully. "It will never be alright." Her voice was frail and small and scared.

"Aye, it shall be," he replied, trying to sound reassuring.

"Do you forgive me?" she asked tremulously, unsure. It made his heart feel full to bursting with the saddest, sweetest feeling.

"Aye, of course," he replied, the disbelief in his voice from being astonished that she, of all people, was asking forgiveness from him.

She turned to him and flung her arms around his neck, burrowing her head into his shoulder. He smiled, bringing her closer, letting his own arms wrap around her, stroke her side, tuck her head under his chin. Her shoulders convulsed, and he tightened his grip, wishing he could lessen her pain. He felt her lips moving against his neck, heard her voice repeating "I'm sorry" over and over again like her litany in the Sept.

He shushed her, allowing himself to smooth a palm over her hair, hating himself for enjoying the way she turned into him, the feeling of her tears against his skin, her warmth against his side. One of her hands knotted itself in his tunic, balling the fabric up into her little fist as the other threaded through the hair at the base of his neck.

"Better?" he asked, when her sobbing had subsided, her tears drying on his skin.

She nodded against his chest, her head dropping onto his breast from his neck. It felt wonderful to have her wrapped up in his arms again. He'd spent two years dreaming of her resting there again. Now, she had practically crawled into his lap, and he wasn't about to push her away.

"We should go back," he said quietly, close to her ear. She shivered against him when his breath hit her skin and he relished it.

"No," she murmured, her lips grazing the skin of his neck. It was his turn to shudder, but he tried to hide it by turning his head and resting his scarred cheek against her hair. There wasn't much feeling in it, the scar, but he could feel the smoothness of her hair, the undulation of the thick waves but a whisper of sensation. It was the nearness of her that he wanted, the smell of her hair again in his nostrils. "Stay with me awhile."

 _As long as you'll have me, forever_ , he wanted to say.

"Tell me about where we're going." Her voice was still little and tentative. He almost smiled.

"What do you want to know?"

"What do you remember?"

 _Fire, the smell of burning flesh and hair. Illness and death. Cruelty._

"We had dogs," he said at last. "Dozens of them. I raised my first litter at five, from birth until we sold them, or gave them to the Lannisters at the rock. I don't remember which."

"What kind of dogs?"

"Hounds," he said wryly. "Hunters. Big beasts with sharp noses."

"And good dispositions."

"Aye," he replied. "Loyal beasts, and true. I wasn't allowed to name them, but I did. Silly names, like Pretty Girl."

She laughed a little against him, and he absorbed it with pleasure. "I'm sure they adored you."

"They did," he replied. "It was the dogs that-" His throat seized.

"That what?" she asked quietly.

"They didn't care," he said softly. "After."

She tightened her grip on his neck and if he'd had more sensation in that part of his body he might have been sure that she pressed her lips to his skin, to the knotted scar that ran down his neck, that she'd voluntarily buried her face against.

She asked no more questions, but her hold on him didn't weaken, not until he felt her breathing go deep and regular. _Asleep,_ he thought, savoring her warmth against him, the weight of her settling against his chest.

He held her for a long time, maybe even a few hours, not wanting to let her go. By the time he shook her gently awake, the moon hung low in the sky.

She rose with a start, stretching and yawning as he greedily watched, her face still glowing in the moonlight. Without a word, he rose and reached a hand toward her. She took it without hesitation, pulling herself up until she stood next to him. For a long moment, they both looked out over the meadows awash in starlight.

"It looks like the sea, that night in White Harbor."

"Aye," he whispered, just then noticing that her hand was still in his. A wolf howled. "Come."

He loosened his grip to see if she would pull her hand from his. She didn't, and he tried not to think too hard about it, simply enjoying the feeling of it in his own, soft and small and warm. He delivered her back to the tent she was sharing with the children, lifting the back of it and crouching low while she scrambled through. Before he let it drop, she seized his hand again, pressing the back of his knuckles to her cheek with a sad expression in her eyes, even in the darkness. He grunted, turning his hand against his will, dragging his fingers along the curve of her jaw, forgiveness and apology together in one gesture.

She smiled gently and vanished into the dark, the flap falling behind her, but he stayed crouching there in the long grass, reconciling his breathing and for once, just once, admiring the beauty that was a moonlit night in the Westerlands where he'd been born.

A/N: Another one down. Thank you to everyone that continues to leave reviews. It makes me happy to see so many names appear again and again! I take what you write very seriously, and it has altered some imminent plot points. We'll see how they go! Keep the feedback coming!


	20. Chapter 20

Lenna XVII

Lenna was shocked by how beautiful Casterly Rock was. The height of it was staggering, perhaps eight or ten times as high as her own Seal Rock, towering over the landscape above misty meadows like the promised kingdom from some fairy story. The Keep itself rose ever higher, spires of gold against a blazing blue sky hung with white clouds like pennants. It didn't look real.

She had begged to ride in on one of the pack animals, a stout little pony, blithely telling the queen that she wished to see the countryside around Lannisport. In fact, she had wanted to ride in with Sandor. She had suffered for her pride and cruelty to him the day of the tourney. It was her moment of greatest shame, lobbing that epithet at him like a Lannister. It still made her cringe, even though it had been he who had first asked for pardon, who had acted like he had nothing to forgive her for, that it was beneath her to ask him for his forgiveness.

 _He thinks he deserves to be treated like that_ , she thought bitterly, and it brought angry tears every time it crossed her mind. He'd begged her pardon, swallowing his own pride, and had accepted her apology with open arms. _Literally_ , she thought, shivering to remember. She'd ungracefully flung herself at him, and he'd actually embraced her, his massive arms around her just as they'd been in White Harbor, giving solace. She promised herself that it would never happen again, she couldn't bear to be the one who rendered him mute and hard like that. She thought it likely that he only forgave her because it was _her_. Anyone else and he'd have carried that grudge until his last breath. Instead, he'd tucked her into his warmth with an almost desperate relief.

She hadn't meant to trouble him further, asking him about the Westerlands. She'd enjoyed hearing him talk about the dogs, but she didn't miss his meaning. She couldn't imagine the pain he'd been through, and it laid her low again with shame. She had kissed him, pressing her lips against the scarred skin on the side of his neck, stunned by her own courage. It was no display of passion, just simple care when there were no words. She wondered if he'd even felt it. He'd shuddered, but he'd said nothing, the most eloquent of his gestures coming as he delivered her back to her tent, his rough fingertips trailing along her jaw so softly she could have imagined it.

 _You didn't_.

Tywin Lannister had escorted her into his home that first night, riding beside her as they entered the Lion's Mouth. It was after nightfall, the journey through the city taking the better part of a day. The only clue that they were in a cavern and not under the vault of the sky was the absence of stars. The torchlight couldn't penetrate the darkness, and Tywin had smirked as she looked up in awe, realizing how deep and impenetrable the Rock really was.

The days passed in peaceful indolence. She and Tyrion took long walks through the gardens that looked out from a staggering height to the sea. They were lush, verdant, the trees full of birds that sang so sweetly in the sunshine, and at dusk the sunset was spectacular as it spilled its reds and oranges and golds over the shining waters of the sea, the purples and blues falling like silks shot with the silver of the stars.

She was standing on the ramparts one evening, watching the spill of color over the waves before she went in for dinner. It was so different from standing on the walls of the New Castle, the wind here a pleasant, sultry breeze that gently stirred the few curls that had escaped her coil. The sun was still warm on her face even as it melted below the horizon.

"The Westerlands agree with you. You look quite at home here."

She turned to find Tywin Lannister standing at her elbow. His grim features were oddly softened. She wondered if her was remembering another woman who looked like her standing in that very spot in another time.

"I have never seen anything so grand as this," she said, the smile in her voice real and brimming.

"Were there not sunsets in White Harbor?" he asked, his hands splayed on the wall.

"Of course, my lord, but to see them spill over the sea, like so much fire…"

"It is beautiful, isn't it?" he said, but his eyes were on her face. She flushed under his gaze. "Your father liked this walk. In his youth."

She laughed, unable to stop herself.

"Why do you laugh?"

"My father is not known for his appreciation of beautiful things."

"He loved your mother. As much as I loved my Joanna, I'm sure."

"I have heard she was a great beauty. Your wife."

"She was. Cersei is the very picture of her. Just as you are of Adalyn Locke. You know, looking at you, I can almost imagine that Joanna is still alive."

"My mother-" she began, her voice soft in light of his oddly tender reminiscences. She would never have thought to see Tywin Lannister looking wistful, but that exactly described the expression in his hawkish face as he tilted his head to look at her.

"Yes. Very like you, in ways far beyond the resemblance. She was intelligent, kind, and a little obstinate. She was my wife's dearest friend before we married. It was a bitter separation. My Joanna-"

"Yes?"

"She loved your mother very much. I have always felt...well, guilty, that their friendship was severed."

"It is hard to lose a friend," she said quietly, thinking of her own and how close she'd come. Instead of a lovely lady, hers was a massive killer with grey eyes and a savage streak as wide as the sky. Despite their evening in the meadow, riding through the city side by side, he was still far distant from her. It was impossible for them to be as she sure they both wished to.

"It is. No riches could replace that loss. When I see you next to Cersei, it's almost like no time has passed, but alas. It's just an illusion. It was another lifetime. They are both gone now," he replied, and his voice sounded almost forlorn. She wondered if they were still talking about his wife, and not of himself. For the first time, Lenna allowed herself to look at Tywin Lannister as a person and not a great lord. Her own father had said they'd loved each other as brothers once, had been as close as close could be. He'd spoken with pain in his own voice when he told her the story of their boyhood, how so many years had been levelled with a single act. Though this lord was cruel and cold, it was possible he still had some brotherly feeling for her father, some deep hurt. Knowing Sandor had taught her that those with the hardest exteriors were often a writhing mass of pain on the interior. Perhaps Tywin Lannister wasn't simply corrupt. She suspected he was rather more complicated than that.

Long ago, she had accepted that good and evil were not so clear as they were in the storybooks. Good men appeared wretched, did horrible things, and evil men were capable of kindness. Most certainly thought that the Hound must be evil with his twisted face and well-deserved reputation for brutality, but she knew better. He was far more complex, just as these Lannisters, so beautiful to look at, could be so unbelievably cruel and unscrupulous. The distance between virtue and vice was smaller than she'd wanted to admit, with most people unknowingly flitting between the two. There were so few absolutes.

"It is time for dinner," he said, his attempt at a smile landing cold, extending his elbow to her. She put her hand in the crook, allowing him to lead her in.

She was seated next to Tyrion as usual, Sandor opposite as he stood behind the queen and Myrcella. All through dinner, her eyes flicked to him. He was watching her intently, his face blank but his eyes and brows active, their secret language flowing easily even among the lions. They were distracted by each other, and Cersei was in high spirits, talkative with her brother and her father, the children whisked off as soon as the meal was finished. The adults adjourned to the hearth, the large comfortable chairs clustered around the flames. Sandor moved to stand against the wall, just out of the circle of light.

 _We are not in White Harbor._

"Will my lady sing for us?" Tyrion asked, pushing out his lower lip like a child. She shook her head, but smiled.

"What would you have, my lord," she asked. She didn't wish to sing, but she'd not deny them.

"Why don't you sing us something melancholy," he said.

"Most songs are melancholy, my lord," she replied.

"Take your pick, then," he laughed.

Lenna closed her eyes, rifling through the lyrics she knew by heart. When she lit upon it, her eyes darted just briefly to Sandor, standing with his head thrown back and his throat exposed. His eyes were staring unblinking at the ceiling as if preparing himself.

She chose _My Heart is Sair_ , regretting it almost as soon as she'd begun.

The events of the past few weeks came down on her with force. The tourney, their argument, their reconciliation. She had denied what it was she felt for Sandor Clegane for far too long, and the music was ruthless, granting no reprieve. When she'd sung it in White Harbor it had been true, she'd know she'd cared for him as more than her friend even then, but now, after so much time, it was even more poignant as that feeling had spun itself into something encompassing and staggering. And hopeless. Each word became a little dart of pain that nestled in her chest. She knew her voice had thickened, and she hoped that they all simply thought it was part of the performance.

When she came to the last refrain, even the queen had tears in her eyes.

"That was quite moving," she said, swiping the wetness from her fair cheeks. "I wonder, Lenna, if you've someone in mind when you sing it."

"No, your grace," she lied, hoping Sandor would hear the falsehood in it. He always could tell when she was lying. She hoped he'd hear it and know it was him. "It's just an old song."

"Clegane," the queen said imperiously. He straightened himself out, stretching to his full height. "See the lady back to her chambers."

Tywin Lannister walked out with his daughter, leaving Tyrion and Lenna before the hearth, Sandor standing in the shadows. Lenna made no move to leave, staring at the fire as she tried to gather herself together, dreading walking back alone with him through the dark halls of the Rock after such an emotional display.

"I'll see her back, Clegane," Tyrion said softly, his eyes fixed with deadly seriousness on Lenna's face. She looked at him, the expression on his features making her feel a thin trickle of misgiving.

"My orders-" Sandor protested, clearing his throat.

"Never fear," Tyrion said, flicking his eyes toward the other man with a smirk. "No harm will come to her under my watch either."

At such a dismissal, Sandor strode from the room with purposeful, angry steps. Lenna looked at Tyrion with as little expression as she could muster, wary at his continued silence.

"My dear," he breathed, his mismatched eyes glowing with significance. "Does he know?"

"Know what?" she asked quickly, her breath hitching, an icy bolt of terror running down her spine. Tyrion looked at her solemnly, his tousled curls spilling over his forehead above grave eyes. He had clasped his hands behind his back, straightening his spine to look at her from his full height. The expression on his face was shrewd, studious, taking in every line and flicker in her own.

He drew in a great breath, running a hand through his hair as he looked into the fire, away from her. "I hardly know what to think of it, but-"

"But what?" she bit out.

"You," he said heavily, then he nodded to the door with a raise of his chin. "And him. And-"

"Hush, Tyrion." Her voice was a low plea. She was distressed that he would speak of it, that he couldn't detect her pain. She had hidden it for so long, so well.

His eyebrows shot up under his hair, out of view. He took three steps toward her, hands still behind his back, his mouth quirk humorlessly.

"So it is true! You are- dare I even say it- in _love_ with Sandor Clegane." When he pronounced the last, he said it with a knotting of his brow, as if such a thing were complete incomprehensible.

Lenna didn't answer, feeling her face blaze with embarrassment, her chest so tight she couldn't breathe. She'd never allowed her to even think the word before, and here was Tyrion discussing it openly. He wasn't upset or disgusted, more bewildered, just as she was. She didn't know where to look, what to do with her hands, so she stared at them as they lay limply in her lap like dead birds.

"Oh gods," he said with a hiccup of a laugh, his hand flying up to cover his mouth, the signet ring on his little finger flashing in the firelight. "I was hoping you'd at least try and deny it. Is this the lay of things, then?"

Tears sprang to her eyes and she opened her mouth, but there were no words. Her hands bunched in her skirts, her knuckles going white.

"He doesn't know." Tyrion uttered the words tenderly, with realization and a great deal of sympathy. So much sympathy that the tears that had gathered in her eyes now ran in a steady trickle down her cheeks.

She shook her head.

"Lenna, my dear," he said, crossing the distance between them and pulling her hand into his. "You have no idea, do you?"

"Of what?" she sniffed, unable to look away from his earnest gaze.

Silence weighed heavily between them, a bough laden with rotting fruit. "The Hound- Clegane- he's been in love with you for years."

She tore her gaze from his, so earnest and open, and her back stiffened. "You don't know that."

"I'm certain of it," he replied, matter-of-factly, putting a hand to her cheek and pulling her to face him. "I know I've teased you about your...friend...but I've watched him. I admit that I've never liked him, and from the moment I saw his interest in you, I have kept my eye out."

"He'd never hurt me," she whispered. "He's never done anything inappropriate."

"I know that now. No, quite the contrary. It was obvious to me even then that Sandor Clegane would die for you a thousand times. Since the first time I saw you together in King's Landing, I've known. When you are in a room, he sees nothing else. He looks at you like a starving dog looks at a bone, all want and hunger. You sang that song one night, _Come Again, Sweet Love,_ the one I needled you about. Do you remember?"

She nodded.

"At the time, I believe I told you it was too saccharine, too unrealistic. A poet's idea of love, something so painful and consuming, all that panting and sighing and dying. I had certainly never felt that way. But that night as you sang, I glanced at him and I saw a man just that...afflicted."

"Stop it, Tyrion," she said softly. She didn't want to hear any more. She couldn't hear any more. The careful control she had over herself was rending like a rope fraying under too much pressure.

"He couldn't take his eyes from you, and I swear he never drew breath, just looked at you with this terrible, gaunt yearning. It embarrassed me to see that sort of look on a man's face, especially his. I would have mocked him if I'd had the chance. It almost angered me, I believed he had no right to look at you like that, though I must give him some credit. I'd never thought he'd have much of an appreciation of beauty and goodness. A beast like that, so hopelessly devoted to a fair young maid." Tyrion laughed humorlessly. "Just like a hound. I always thought the name stemmed from his sigil, at the very list that hideous face."

"He isn't a beast," she protested, tears in her voice. "Or a dog."

"No, and you can't bear to hear him spoken of like that. You never have approved, your eyes always going narrow even though you try to hide it. You are so good at controlling your face, except when it comes to that. I always thought it was because you were too kind-hearted. After all, you befriended such as me."

"Don't do yourself such disservice," she protested, seeing her opportunity to change the course of the conversation and taking it.

Tyrion shook his head. "You won't distract me, not about this. This isn't about me. This is about you. And him. And your...predicament. I never dreamed, never imagined, that it might be reciprocated on your part. It seems too ridiculous, though I had rather hoped-" His voice trailed off and she closed her eyes as if in pain. She knew where he was leading. "Seeing as you love _him_ , I suppose it was never too much to hope that you could love such as me."

"I do love you, my lord," she said lowly.

"Yes, as dearly as I love you, dear Lenna." He had come closer to her, actually having to stoop to see into her face, her hands tightly held in his.

"As a friend," she whispered, opening her eyes to find him watching her. Perhaps there was a pang of disappointment in his face, but she knew it wasn't from any romantic feeling.

He nodded sadly, owning it. "It would have been a brilliant alliance. I dare say, we would have found happiness of a sort. My father would have been elated. He's been turning it over in his mind for years, you know, a union between two great port cities. And our children, what clever little fellows that would have been, though hopefully they would have taken after you."

She smiled lopsidedly.

"If you'd have preferred Jaime, I do believe he would have renounced his vows. He's passing fond of you, you know. I haven't seen him dance in years."

She smiled sadly. "You are both very fine men. I should be overjoyed at the prospect of either of you, but I doubt at this point that I will ever marry. Any other woman would be thrilled at a husband of your father's making."

"I wonder at the truth of that, given your taste," he laughed, unable to control himself. She looked at him seriously and his smile faded. "I'll tell none. You needn't worry, your secret is safe."

"If you sniffed me out, then your sister-" she replied worriedly.

"Can't see past her own nose," he said derisively. "You've nothing to fear there. I had only been sure of his side of things, and your behavior has been nothing but what I would expect from a good-hearted lady who has a tender spot for the bastards and the broken things."

"Then how-" she asked brokenly, wiping her hands over her thighs.

"That song tonight meant something. To both of you. You looked at him when you stopped, to see his reaction."

She nodded once. She had and he'd been looking at her through the fall of his hair, the gray eyes so despondent.

"And did you see?" he asked, urgently. She shook her head. But she had seen. She had seen how intent his eyes were on her face, his parted mouth, the desolate stoop of his shoulders. She had seen and it had made her even more wretched than before as she had no idea what they could do. "Darling Lenna, what have you gotten yourself into?"

"It cannot be."

"He cares not what my sister tells him, or my father, but when it comes to you, my dear, he would lay down his very life if you asked. I'm sure you need do nothing but speak-"

"Tyrion," she said lowly, her throat thickening, silently pleading with him to let it be.

"Dear girl," he said, coming close and drawing her to him. She rested her head on his shoulder. "You're living out one of your stupid romances. There's no need to suffer so. What good comes from him not knowing?"

"It cannot be," she repeated brokenly.

"Lenna," he said, cupping her face between both his hands.

"How? Where? When? Your sister, my father, they would never consent-"

"Take him as your lover, then. You're no silly maid, you're a grown woman, and you deserve some measure of happiness even if it isn't exactly what you want."

"You insult me," she said lowly. Tyrion rolled his eyes and it made her angry.

"Prudish miss," he said with affectionate scorn. "At least tell him. Put the old dog out of his misery," Tyrion said. It was a sore attempt at humor, and his face went serious again. "I can't stand watching you hurt, Lenna, and I have for far too long."

She smiled wanly, reaching out to him and squeezing his hand.

"I am not unhappy-"

"Don't lie to me. We have never lied to each other, Lenna," Tyrion said firmly.

"I'm not lying," she replied, even though it felt weak.

"Not being unhappy is not the same as being happy."

"Not in the way you're talking about, perhaps not."

Tyrion raked his hand across his head. "We've turned you into one of us, haven't we? Perhaps our greatest crime."

"What do you mean?"

"When I first met you, I was enchanted," he said with a warm smile. "I probably was a little in love with you then, the lovely, surprising girl in the library. Quiet, brilliant, and so exceptionally kind. You are still that girl, but we have brought you into this deceitful web, haven't we? We are a cynical bunch, though we call ourselves realistic. So much scheming and greed-"

"You are not selfish, Tyrion," she said lowly.

"Am I not? You are the only one who thinks so, I assure you. You, who don't have a selfish bone in your body. I am a Lannister. We're born ungenerous, except when it comes to those we bind ourselves to."

"You all have always been kind to me," she said quietly.

"Do you truly believe that?" he asked, his voice hard and his mismatched eyes like stones. "We ripped you from your home and didn't let you go back for how many years? And then, don't think I wasn't told about it later, then we forced you to return at a moment's notice, like jerking the strings on a child's marionette."

"I could have stayed in White Harbor. Sandor would have shouldered that blame."

"Then why did you come back? It wasn't for me. And as much as you love her, it wasn't for Myrcella."

"It would have put my family in peril, and..I didn't want to be parted from-"

"Oh gods, Lenna," Tyrion said, wiping his hand over his face. "Exactly how long has this been going on."

"I don't know. Five years, maybe?" At Tyrion's stifled bark of laughter, she blinked back her tears and stood quickly. "I am rather tired."

"One question," Tyrion said lowly. "Why? Why Sandor Clegane? Why not someone like Arys Oakheart, or Renly Baratheon, or even Jaime, for fuck's sake? They're all much better candidates for your tragic love than the bloody Hound."

She became very still, knowing that Tyrion wasn't angry so much as he was distressed. He truly was her friend, compassion evidenced in his agitation for her.

"He saw me," she said quietly. "From the beginning. When no one else would even look at me, he did. When my mother died, he waited at my door until I'd stopped crying. Hours. He risked himself for me-"

"How?"

"I'll not tell you," she replied. "It was innocent and good of him, a favor for a lonely girl and I'll not have him suffer for it. He is so loyal."

"To you."

"Has he been disloyal to your family? Ever?"

"Not in the fifteen years he's been in our service. It's almost a joke. We kick him and he apologizes. He laughs at honor, but it seems to me he binds himself to it more carefully than even Ser Barristan at times."

"Aye," she said sadly.

"I never thought I'd say this," Tyrion said wryly. "But I envy the Hound. I do wish you'd tell him."

"Perhaps one day I will," she said, smiling feebly. "But for now, I want to go to bed."

They walked together through the silence of the Rock. When they reached her door, Tyrion reached for her hand, taking it gently between both of his.

"I beg you," Tyrion whispered. "Think about what I said. Take it to heart. Consider it."

"I will," she replied.

Sandor XVII

He'd waited for over an hour, wondering what they could possibly be discussing beside the fire. He'd taken up residence in a dark corner, watching and waiting, his imagination being decidedly unhelpful, especially as the lines of that damned song ran through his head.

 _Her voice was so sincere_ , he thought, remembering the longing in her voice as she sang that old song, the one that had tormented him during their time in White Harbor long ago. It surely sounded like she meant it. He'd pressed his head against the wall as soon as they began to cajole her into singing, preparing himself for the torment to come. There had never been a song she'd sung that hadn't haunted him after, not even _The Bear and Maiden Fair,_ and it was ridiculous. His mind had turned him into the bear in his sleep, and he huffed to remember that particular dream, lapping at his quivering, whimpering maiden-fair. It still made the blood rush out of his head and his breath come erratically short.

That evening, her voice had sounded so full and so bereft at the same time, like she was without hope. It wasn't likely that Jaime Lannister had provoked such feeling. He knew from listening to their conversations that Tywin was more than willing to consider pressing his eldest son out of the Kingsguard to usurp his little brother. Sandor had no doubt that Tyrion would leap at the chance to have Lenna Manderly for himself. The mutual respect and admiration between the two of them was evident enough.

 _Then who?_

When she'd finished singing, he'd flicked his eyes to her and found her looking at him, her lips still parted. He'd thought nothing of it at the time. _Daft_ , he shouted to himself now. There was no way that she'd been speaking of him. Was there? She had been looking at him so intently, her usually pleasing face tight with some indecipherable emotion. He'd never seen her look that way, certainly not at him, and it sent him into a maelstrom of confusion.

He knew she had a tender feeling for him. She treated him as kindly as he'd ever been treated. That was why hearing her call him 'dog' had been so devastating. Others had regularly done worse, but she had never stooped to such a low. He'd provoked her to it, saying unspeakable things, and when she apologized, flinging herself against him, he'd had to fight very hard not to do something irrevocable like ravish her there on the ground against that old tree.

She didn't shy away from any part of him, from his gaze to his touch, leaving her hand in his on the long walk back across that moonlit meadow. Then she had sought him out, riding beside him into Lannisport just as she had into White Harbor. He wondered what she thought at such times, what she thought of him. He wanted to be worthy of the esteem she clearly held for him, even though he knew he wasn't.

Which was why he was lurking in the shadows in a completely sound Keep, waiting to ensure that she was safely in her rooms before bedding down himself. At least, that's what he whispered to his own mind, knowing that he was really just jealous and needing to see, or hear, what she was discussing with the Imp so late into the night. He was jealous that Tyrion Lannister could make the decision to talk with her in the lamplight, to laugh with her, and no one would think the better of it. If he'd done such a thing, he hesitated to contemplate the consequences.

Just then, she and the Imp came down the hallway, their voices quiet. He stepped deeper into the shadows, watching as the Imp took her hand in both of his at her door.

""I beg you. Think about what I said. Take it to heart. Consider it."

His heart had begun to thunder in his chest. There was no doubt in his mind what the little Lannister was talking about. He'd made her an offer, a marriage and a keep and a fortune, a _future_. Of course. He'd dreaded it for years, the idea that she may be sold off in marriage to one of them to become the Lady of Casterly Rock. It would be an exceptional marriage, and she would be second only to the queen in terms of fortune and power. It comforted him to know that she cared for neither, aspired to nothing of the sort.

"I will," she answered, and he was glad to see that her face was serious, sad even. There was no spark of excitement about her as she went into her rooms, closing the door behind her. Tyrion Lannister had lingered for a moment, and he thought perhaps he may be spotted, but the Imp looked at her door for a long time, then shook his head as if clearing away cobwebs.

He wanted to go to her door, to knock and kneel at her feet. To beg her to refuse, even though he knew he had nothing to offer her. He didn't even have a home. His brother was the rightful heir to their modest holdings south of the city, and he had literally the armor on his back. It made him ashamed, knowing that even if she'd have him, there was nothing to give.

 _Except you, and that's a poor proposal for a girl like that._

She should have been married long ago, and he had been fiercely happy that Cersei Lannister was selfish enough to delay or prevent it outright. She was too fond of Lenna herself, too reliant on her care for Myrcella, to have allowed her to make a marriage that would potentially take her from King's Landing. Lenna was well past the point that most women were married, and she hadn't been entirely joking when she referred to herself as an old maid.

But Sandor knew she yearned for it, for a family. It was obvious in the way she held Myrcella, let her fingers rest on the girl's head, let the child nestle into her even as she grew too big to sit in laps. And he wanted to give her that so badly, a brood of children, of bairns that looked like some combination of the two of them, all dark hair and stormy eyes. He'd spent as many nights thinking about her round with his pups, mothering them, as he had of making them with her. It was one of the sweetest and most haunting dreams that visited him, especially since they'd arrived in the Westerlands. He'd awoken on more instances than he could count from the brutally realistic vision of them walking hand in hand through the meadows by the sea, surrounded by those children, robust and laughing and whole.

He returned to his bunk, a narrow room with a high window, and he'd lain in the too-short bed staring at the ceiling. If he'd slept, they would come to him, and tonight he didn't want them to. Tonight he would be wakeful to keep them away so he could avoid just that much more pain. It was never a realistic dream, but if Tyrion Lannister had made an offer for her, such an impossibility would be too cruel to endure.

He took to the training yards early in the morning, destroying the pells with blow after blow. He was dripping with sweat and sore with exertion when he finally returned to the bath house. He was to guard at dinner, and he was determined not to show her how destroyed he was by what he'd seen the night before. It had bedeviled him long into the night as he was unable to see how she could refuse such an offer. It was more likely that she would acquiesce, even if it made her unhappy. If she'd asked his advice, he probably would have told her to accept. There was no other option.

He washed thoroughly, even lathering his hair, attempting to cleanse himself of that train of thinking. He hated washing his face, the scars made the water run into his eyes and they stung with the harsh soap, but he scrubbed until he felt raw. Donning a fresh set of underclothes and all of his armor, he went once again into the dining hall and took his place along the wall.

She flushed becomingly when her eye met his. His mood immediately darkened, but he cast his eye from her and rested his focus on the exits, methodically shifting his focus from one to the next.

The meal was perfectly normal until they got to dessert. Something ornate and fussy that he saw her pick at rather than eat. He knew how she felt about rich food. He had just made himself look away when he detected the flurry of movement at an exterior door, and it brought him to attention immediately.

Tyrion must have seen him go on alert, because the Imp swivelled in his chair to look as well. The Maester came, a dignified older man, and he was bearing a scroll bound in black.

For a moment, Sandor's eyes flicked to Lenna, seeing her go white, but the raven's message was delivered straight to the queen. Cersei didn't even look surprised, she simply smiled and thanked the Maester, slipping the ribbon from the parchment and breaking the seal. A Baratheon stag.

"Oh my," she said softly, the smallest furrow appearing between her brows. "What dreadful news."

Sandor swore that her lip quirked upwards when she looked at her father, passing the scroll on to him.

"Dreadful indeed," Tywin said, pinching the bridge of his nose and inhaling swiftly. "Jon Arryn was a good man."

Sandor felt a hot stone of apprehension drop into his belly.

"Well," Cersei said airily, pushing her dessert around on her plate with her fork. "It is so unfortunate. We shall certainly have to cut our visit short and go back to King's Landing. Though I fear we shall miss the funeral."

"Indeed, daughter," Tywin replied, letting the parchment fall to the table. "But you must console your husband as we as you can. He will have much on his mind, selecting a new Hand."

Cersei could barely contain her smile as she sipped from her goblet.

"You are right, father," she said cooly. "We'll leave at first light."

A/N: Again, a huge shout-out to everyone who has left a review. They make my day and push me to get this to you as quickly as I can. The more the better! How many of you can spot your influence? Just curious. I am also getting antsy for them to just go ahead and get together already. Your pain is mine. I'm not in control of them, they're in control of themselves at this point, and boy, they are frustrating even me! When it happens (I know when, it's already written), I hope it will have been worth the extremely long wait.

Well, damn. I guess I'm at that point not: review! Please!


	21. Chapter 21

Lenna XIX

Once more, her trunk was packed and loaded among those of the princess. They had stayed in King's Landing for less than a week, Jon Arryn already eulogized and buried when they arrived. She felt like she'd scarcely had time to draw breath before the King ordered them back on the road, this time North, to Winterfell.

She'd assumed that the honor of becoming the Hand of the King would go to Jaime Lannister. After all, Cersei had spoken of little else since the raven bearing the news of Jon Arryn's death had arrived. She and her father had seemed almost gleeful, like they'd been waiting for such news. It would certainly be to their advantage if Ser Jaime could secure the position. Lenna wasn't so foolish that she couldn't see the immeasurable benefits for the Lions of Casterly Rock.

"Remember what I told you about we Lannisters," Tyrion had murmured, the two of them stretching their legs with a walk during a break on the trek East. "We always do what's best for our own."

They were still a day's ride outside of the capital, and Lenna still felt the jarring of the wheelhouse in her very bones. She hadn't responded, only looking at him warily, wondering where exactly she fit into that arrangement. It certainly wasn't the first time it had crossed her mind since Sandor had pointed out that she was a Lannister servant, just as he was. She never doubted Tyrions affection for her, but she wondered to what lengths he would go to help her should she need it.

 _There's only one you can rely on unconditionally, and his name is not Lannister._

When they arrived back in King's Landing, the King's choice had thrown the queen's household into a frenzy. Cersei locked herself in her study for an entire day, the only people allowed in and out were her brothers and Lenna herself, much to her surprise. Cersei ordered Sandor to bring her, and Lenna came and went uneasily, bearing flagon after flagon of wine. Cersei barely looked at her when she came in, but each time she made her stay until the wine had run out again, reading to her as she fumed.

"What think you of Lord Stark?" she'd demanded, interrupting her mid-sentence. It was an old tale about a dragon and a maid. When she looked up at the queen, she felt a deep sympathy for the maiden trapped in the dragon's lair.

"From what I remember, your grace, he is a noble and an honest man," she replied, tucking her finger into the pages to hold her place.

"Honest," she chided, drinking from her goblet. "Your father, what does he think?"

"That I do not know, your grace," she replied levelly. "My father and I did not speak of him when I was last at home, and that has been two years ago now."

"Robert trusts him with his life."

"Trust is invaluable," Lenna said neutrally. _You wouldn't trust her with a cat._

"Yes," Cersei said. "Jaime I would have trusted best of all."

"Of course, your grace. Ser Jaime would have been a fine Hand."

"Do you think so, really?" Cersei asked, cocking her head. Lenna knew she was on dangerous ground. The queen's eyes were narrowed as she looked at her. Lenna long ago decided that finding something true to say, even if it was weak, was better than uttering a falsehood. It was easier to defend, and easier to remember later. Too many liars were tripped up by forgetting.

"Of course, your grace. Ser Jaime is an exemplary knight. All the qualities that make him an exceptional Kingsguard would serve the realm at large, don't you think?"

Cersei looked back at her coldly, but she didn't disagree, flicking her hand to indicate Lenna should continue with the story as she poured yet another glass of wine.

Lenna could not face the possibility of riding in the wheelhouse with her for the journey North. It would take the better part of a month, and the thought of being locked into the carriage with the queen in such a foul mood was loathsome. The day before their departure, Lenna asked if she might have a mount, explaining that she would dearly love to ride over the moors as she had as a girl. To her surprise, the queen acquiesced, bidding her take whichever horse she wanted from the stables.

She was discussing the matter with the stable master before dawn the day of their departure when Sandor entered to saddle Stranger. She had selected a stout gray palfrey, the very image of her old Prim.

"Will she do, Clegane?" she asked, rubbing the creature's withers. The animal's eyes were dark and liquid, and Lenna thought that if she could, she would smile. She'd be steady and easy, blessings given Lenna's circumstanced. Every part of her hurt, the scant week in her own bed doing nothing to alleviate the sore muscles and rattled bones of their last journey. It was agony to even think of the one ahead of them, but a horse would be better than the rattle of the carriage.

Sandor came over, running his hand over the stout horse's quarters, down the length of the leg to her hoof, inspecting the frog. Watching his hands fascinated her, large and rough and exceptionally gentle as they ran down the horse's legs. She shook herself when her mind wandered to what they might feel like on her in such a way. Since Tyrion's scandalous suggestion, she'd had a difficult time keeping her thoughts from regularly veering in that direction. _Take him as a lover, then_. She couldn't imagine how they might have that conversation, where she would even begin. How does a woman invite a man into her bed, especially a man like Sandor Clegane? She was too craven to even think of it without her chest and neck flushing and her breath coming short.

"She's sturdy. She'll give you no trouble," he said softly, slapping the animal gently on the rear, completely oblivious to the muddle of her mind.

The stable master had vanished to find a stable boy to saddle the mare, but Lenna went ahead and heaved the pad over her back, not wanting to wait.

"Let me." She had felt him come up behind her, his warmth radiating into her though he was already clad in his armor. She could smell him, sweat and steel and soap, and it made her stomach flip like a fish.

She stepped back to let him tighten the girth, drape the bridle and place the bit, all the while mumbling softly to the animal, the horse's ears pricking up as he talked to her. The horse, Meena, nuzzled him on the shoulder.

"Thank you," she said quietly. He smiled, his mouth quirking almost imperceptibly to one side as he flicked his gaze at her from over Stranger's saddle. It was a quick glance, but she felt it to her core. She'd spent many years thinking about the curve of his lips. It flustered her to think of what they may feel like beneath her own. She watched him, finding herself ruffled for other reasons, too. The staggering breadth of his shoulders, the vulnerable movement of his throat when his head was tilted back as he threw the bridle over the horse's head, the sculpted lines of his often dirty hands as they softly ran down the beast's neck. They made her remember what it had been like to span those shoulders with her arms, to feel his throat against her lips, to have those hands on her. To be wrapped up in him, his scent, surrounding her and filling her lungs like a fur cloak, even if all of their stolen touches were perfectly innocent.

Eight years. They'd been circling each other for eight long years. Tyrion had told her nothing she didn't already know, he'd simply held her feet to fire and made her admit to it. She felt the most pleasurable pain thinking about it, knowing that it was so like her stories, unspoken and potent, always there, latent beneath their everyday interactions. And just like the stories, more or less hopeless. The stories had glorified this affliction, but Lenna found no comfort in it.

They walked out together with that comfortable companionship they'd developed over the years. He held her reins while she mounted, swinging himself up onto Stranger but a moment later. They fell into an easy gait behind the wheelhouse among the entourage for most of the morning.

"Happy to be riding North?" he asked once they were out of the

"Of course, Sandor, it is my home," she responded warmly, turning her gaze forward again.

"How long has it been now?" he asked, his eyes forward, ever scanning.

"Two years," she replied, looking down at her reins in embarrassment. "As you very well know." She felt her throat tighten, though she had counted every day since they'd left her home. It amazed even her that she had been away for so long, especially since the pain of separation seemed so fresh.

"A long time for a girl." His tone was flat, but Lenna knew the note of empathy in it.

"I don't know that I get to call myself a girl anymore, Sandor," she said wryly, looking back at him with a smile. He smirked, at least as much of a smirk as he could muster. "A bit like calling yourself a lad, wouldn't you say?"

"Aye, I suppose," he replied, just the slightest curve of amusement on his mouth. There was no need to say anything else, and she relished their ability to ride together in a comfortable silence.

When he wasn't beside her, Tyrion was. He wasn't going to make the mistake of being confined to the wheelhouse this time either. The weeks plodded along as steadily as the horses as they ranged north, and she found herself enjoying the journey despite her sore muscles and aching bones.

"We are rather near your home, aren't we?" Tyrion asked one morning. They were working their way steadily through the Neck in the direction of Greywater Watch.

"Not far off," she replied quietly.

"No visit planned?" he asked.

"Of course not," she sniffed. He had tried to open this vein of conversation many times in the past, but she was quick to halt it. She thought he would know better by now than to broach the subject again.

"I am sorry for it," he replied lowly, and she managed to smile at him. Tyrion Lannister was a fascinating creature, his vicious tongue and intolerance for stupidity in direct contrast with the depth of compassion that set him apart from his family. She remembered thinking that he was as lonely as she, that he felt the pangs of a conscience where the rest of them were incapable of thinking of others.

It partially explained his gentle treatment of her in the weeks since their conversation in Casterly Rock. Anyone else, she knew, and he'd have eviscerated her with teasing. Instead, his eyes seemed to take on an almost sad cast when he saw her with Sandor. She loved him all the more for it.

"How is your friend," Tyrion asked quietly. He was also disturbingly intuitive. "He's been watching us with avid interest this morning."

Lenna looked over her shoulder and unexpectedly caught Sandor looking at them. As usual, a deep scowl was shadowing his features. She knew was terribly, stupidly jealous of Tyrion, especially since they'd returned from the Westerlands. She had learned not to even mention him if she wanted him to ride with her, lest she be graced with a long string of truly colorful expletives used in a most creative fashion.

"He's looking at me like he's already planned my demise a hundred different ways if I but put one finger out of line. To be rather honest, I feel riding with you may be a risk to my health."

Lenna looked at him with an indulgent smile.

"Please don't let him scare you away."

Tyrion looked like he might say something else, but he must have thought the better of it, instead asking her about a book they'd been trading thoughts on.

When the procession made it to the place where the road forked off toward White Harbor, Lenna found herself frozen at the marker, running her eyes over the worn text over and over. Home could be made a reality in half a day's ride, yet she was bound to continue past it, away from it. The closer she got, the further away home seemed.

"Don't want you to get left behind."

She turned to see Sandor behind her, bringing up the rear. His helm was tucked under his arm, his long hair whipping across his face in the wind, his hands on the reins keeping his mouthy Stranger in check. She smirked at her old friend. Like any horse, he was a fool for an apple or two.

Lenna looked back at the sign. She read it one more time, mentally repeating the words like a charm, then turned the palfrey's head toward the road again.

"Missing it?" he asked, his eyes narrowed against the wind. She blamed it for making her own water.

"You should know better than to ask that," she replied sullenly.

He looked at her askance and she saw an apology in his eyes. She knew, instinctively, that he was just trying to think of something to say. It didn't come easily to him.

"I'm sorry," she said, regretting her tone. His mouth twitched up, the dark gray eyes meeting hers with a measure of warmth. She had always admired the color of his eyes. When he looked at her, they went soft and tender, like she was the only other person in the Seven Kingdoms. He was looking at her that way now, and her stomach fizzed, warm and pleasantly tight. It made her self-conscious, having his eyes lay on her like that. The intensity in his eyes was almost tangible, resting against her as distinctly as a caress, like he had drawn the back of one of those massive fingers down her cheek and along her jaw. No wonder Tyrion had seen it. She wondered how many others knew, for it was obvious to her now though she'd spent so long pretending she didn't.

"Do you think he'll come?" She asked suddenly, choking on the swell of feeling that rose in her. "My father. Do you think he'll come? Have you...have you heard anything?"

"Nothing to report," he replied simply. "But it would be best if he did. Most of the Northern bannermen are expected."

"I hope that he does."

"For your sake, I do, too. Don't get your hopes up too high. You know how he feels about Lannisters."

She tried to smile, to take it as a joke but was mortified to feel tears welling up in her eyes again, turning her face from him. She hated how often she cried in front of him.

He touched her lightly on the back of her hand where it lay on the pommel of her saddle. She loved his hands. Though enormous, they were beautiful. They were calloused and brown, the nails close bitten and dirty, but the muscles and bones and tendons were uncommonly sinewy and fine. They were like the hands on the statue of the Smith in the Sept, strong and unexpectedly graceful.

Without a thought, she compulsively covered his hand with her own, gratified when he turned his palm up and squeezed her fingers before quickly pulling away, making sure no one had been watching.

Sandor XIX

Winterfell was a dreary, homely place. He didn't much care for it's muddy yard and dark hall, but he found that he liked it. After so many years in pretentious King's Landing, he felt himself relax to be among such simple, straight-forward people. He remembered Ned Stark from his youth, and though the lord was much older, he still had that melancholy air of nobility that Sandor grudgingly admired.

The family had gathered in the muddy courtyard when the caravan arrived, the children all assembled. Sandor had donned his helm, riding in next to Joffrey. With the princess and prince Tommen in the wheelhouse, he spent most of time on-duty with the adolescent cunt. Unfortunately for him, Joffrey seem to like him and his rough ways. Sandor found that he didn't hate being able to roughly speak his mind, and the boy encouraged it. He was still the Hound, after all. He'd begun to think the beast had been killed, but he surfaced all too readily when Joffrey whistled for him.

She had ridden in behind him, but he didn't miss the flash of a glance her eldest niece shot him. The girl was a little bit taller than when they'd seen her last, but her eyes were just as quick and observant as they had been, and he was quite sure she'd smirked at him. She'd taken in how close he'd stayed to Lenna as soon as Joffrey had dismounted and joined the royal family, how he'd grabbed her palfrey's reins as Lenna dismounted. Wynna's eyes saw it all. He had forgotten how discerning these Manderlys were.

Wyman had grown even fatter, and though Sandor had hung behind while they greeted Lenna, the old man found him at the earliest opportunity, shaking his hand like they were equals or friends. He found himself overcome with fondness for the old lord, answering his queries with patience and a distinctly un-Houndlike lack of annoyance.

A feast was ordered three days after their arrival in celebration of Lord Stark's consent to become the king's Hand. He would find it amusing to watch the Lannisters try look like they were happy. They were always miserable at it. The queen and her twin were a gloomy looking pair these days. They had rushed back to King's Landing upon hearing of the death of Jon Arryn only to find the king already in preparations to travel North to ask Eddard Stark to take the job.

Here they were, over a thousand miles North overland, and Ned Stark had agreed to take the job. If someone had asked Sandor, he thought the whole trip was a bloody waste of time. A raven would have sufficed.

He'd been with Joffrey all afternoon, and what little patience he had was wearing thin. The last thing he wanted to do was stand guard at a banquet. Lenna came in with Myrcella as the sun started to dip below the horizon. She was wearing a dress of rich blue, a shawl spread over her shoulders, the red ribbon in the dark coil of her hair. He was struck again with how at home she looked, just as she had in White Harbor. Her movements were somehow softer, more relaxed, her eyes brighter. It sent a pang through him to remember how wan she'd been the last time she'd had to leave, wondering if it would be the same on their return.

She spared a smile for him, her lips and cheeks rouged, her eyes accentuated with kohl, large and limpid in the torchlight. The little princess was excitedly chattering to her mother about the afternoon they had spent with the Stark girls.

"Lady Sansa is so kind, mother," Myrcella gushed. "And so pretty."

"I'm glad you like her, sweetling," Cersei replied. "She's coming back with us. You'll get to see her often in King's Landing."

"It will be good to have a friend."

I'm glad you like Lady Sansa," Lenna chimed in. "She will be a perfect companion for you. She always was a pleasing girl." Sandor was the only one who noticed the quick quirk of Lenna's eyebrow as she said the last. He wondered what she really thought of the child.

"Is she much changed?" the queen asked.

"Since she was five? Of course, your grace," Lenna laughed. "Quite the little lady it seems. Frankly, I'm surprised she remembered me at all."

"Little ones take to you," the queen commented.

"They do seem to," Lenna smiled. "I knew the boys better. Always getting into scraps. Why, I remember one time they painted all of the horses' hooves pink, then tried to pin it on us girls."

"When was that?" the queen asked. He could hear the note of interrogation that came into her voice whenever she was fishing for information.

"The last Harvest Festival I attended here. I would have been fourteen, your grace."

"How old was young Robb, then?"

"Oh, I don't know. He's what, fifteen, sixteen now? So, still a little lad. Eight or nine. He and Jon and Theon were quite a handful, but between Benjen and I, we kept them in line."

"Benjen Stark?" One of Cersei's hair pins could have dropped and he would have heard it.

"Aye, your grace. He always had a soft spot for the little ones, too," Lenna smiled.

"He's due tonight."

"He is?" her face broke into a broad smile, and Sandor's chest went uncomfortably tight. "I should dearly like to see him."

It seemed to him that her face went strangely wistful, like she was remembering something. He wasn't sure he wanted to know what it was. There was affection there, and he felt like he'd missed out on some key piece of information. He'd had no idea she'd known the Stark children, though he guessed it should have come as no surprise. He sometimes forgot that she'd had a past apart from King's Landing, apart from them. That's why he'd looked on in surprise when Sansa Stark, the pretty elder girl, had shyly approached Lenna in the courtyard on their first day in Winterfell. Lenna had quickly wrapped the girl up in her arms with a smile and a laugh. The three young men of the house, Robb Stark, his bastard brother, and the Greyjoy hostage, had been waiting almost bashfully behind her, bowing to her like the little lordlings they were. Lenna had further taken him aback by greeting them each with a sound kiss on the cheek and a hug.

But it wasn't handsome young Robb Stark that bothered him, it was the appearance of Eddard Stark's little brother. He came in late, but Sandor noted him immediately. The banquet itself was a hot sea of bodies and noise. He hated them, too much to watch. His eyes scanned and darted, but there was too much activity for him to focus. At least that's the excuse he gave himself. He'd been watching Lenna, her features agile and active as she laughed, throwing her head back as she sat with her family as she had in White Harbor.

When the dark man came in, he spoke to his brother first, but he might as well have gone straight to the Manderly table. She had looked up at him, a flush of excitement in her cheeks, and she had stood to greet him. They regarded each other stiffly for a moment, then Benjen Stark said something and Lenna had laughed, throwing her arms around him like a girl much younger than her years. When the Ranger had pulled away, Sandor had recognized the slightly stunned look on his long, handsome face. He felt it on his own often enough. Even though the man was wearing the black of the Night's Watch, a sworn brother of the Wall, he couldn't help the angry twitch of jealousy as he watched the other man smile down into her upturned face, both of her hands in his.

It put him in an even fouler mood, and the night passed with infuriating slowness. Gradually, the hall emptied, the royal family retiring for the night along with the Starks and most of their brood. Benjen Stark had disappeared long ago, but not before he had said goodnight to the Manderly's, pressing Lenna's hand in his once more.

Tyrion, never the first to bed, had bravely made his way down to the Manderly table, though Wyman had eyed him warily at first. Tyrion had the gift of setting people at ease, even though Sandor could see how mercenary the talent really was. However, when the little Lannister caught Sandor's eye and waved him over, he couldn't help but follow.

"Join us for a drink, Clegane," Wyman said, slapping the table with a grin. "We've partaken together in the past."

Sandor hesitated for a moment, looking to Lenna before he sat. She looked back at him with a blush on her cheeks. Her nieces had already gone to bed, but she had remained with the men as they cavorted and drank. It was obvious to him very quickly that she was rather drunk herself, her movements slow and her eyes slightly unfocused but clearly enjoying herself.

He drank two tankards with them in silence, but when the third came around and Lenna reached for another, Sandor caught it and slid it away from her with touch of pique in his gesture.

It caught Wyman's attention, and he looked closely at his daughter, swaying a bit himself.

"Dear Lenna," he said coaxingly. "You'll have a sore head in the morning. Perhaps it's time for bed."

She nodded, perhaps a little embarrassed, making to stand. Sandor wrapped an arm around her waist just in time to keep her from stumbling. Her eyes were wide with astonishment and confusion.

"Steady," he murmured. She looked up at him, her focus bleary and unfocused.

"Clegane," Tyrion said, his words slurred, more that a little intoxicated himself. "See her back, will you? You're the only one left half-sober."

"You'd have my thanks," Wyman said, looking rather sheepish. "I should have kept a better eye on her. And myself." He looked into his cup as if bewildered as to how it had become empty.

Sandor grunted but he didn't refuse.

He stayed close to Lenna as she tripped and stumbled through the dark passageways. It almost made him smile. She was not a graceful drunk, and when she slumped against the wall for a third time, nearly going to her knees, he bit back his reticence and earlier perturbation, swinging her up in his arms.

She hiccupped, looking into his face, her eyes drooping. She looped her arms around his neck and nested her head in the crook of his neck and shoulder, just as she usually did. His arms tightened around her and he turned his face into her brow, pressing a hard kiss to her temple.

He felt guilty for it. She was clearly intoxicated, and he'd never have dared do such a thing if she were sober.

He nudged open her door with his foot, bearing her in as quickly as he could. He left it open as he carried her to the bed heaped with furs. He tried to deposit her gently, but she wouldn't release him, her arms still twisted tightly around her neck.

"Let me go," he said lowly. He was stooped over her, nose to nose. She looked up into his face and shook her head, a little smile about her mouth. "Lenna," he said sternly, reaching up to pull her arms away. Instead of relaxing she pulled herself up to him, their faces just a whisper apart.

"Stay with me."

"No," he rumbled. He was getting irritated again. He'd already sent half the night torturing himself over Benjen fucking Stark, and he wanted to be alone. She had no idea what she was doing, she was not herself, but it was also becoming extremely difficult not to do something he'd hate himself for.

"You want to stay," she said quietly.

"You're drunk, Lenna. Let me go," he said harshly, refusing to look at her any longer. He wanted to yank her arms from him, but he couldn't bring himself to be rough with her. He angled his face from her, turning the scar toward her.

"I want you to stay," she pressed, and he snorted in protest. _She has no idea what she's saying_. He felt her breath on his cheek, just a faint tickle of sensation through the scorched flesh, and then felt the pressure of her mouth on it. He shuddered and fought not to push her away or pull her close.

"Let me go," he said again, this time it was a growl, each word the victory of his better self. She relented and he could have sighed with relief, her arms sliding from his neck as she lay back in the pillows. She looked up at him with disappointment in her face, still lovely among the piles of fur.

He gentled himself, taking a deep breath to stem the tide of panic that had erupted in his bones when she pressed her lips to his scar. No one touched it, he hated when it was touched. He reminded himself that she was drunk out of her senses and not fully in control of herself. She certainly wasn't making this easy on him.

He looked around in deliberation. There was an ewer of water on the table with a cup. He poured some out, then returned to her. She looked up at him with a scowl. Under other circumstances he may have barked a laugh to see his familiar expression on her face.

"Drink this," he said firmly. "You'll regret it tomorrow if you don't."

"You're angry with me," she said, her voice peevish.. "I don't know what I did, but you're angry with me."

"I'm not," he replied. _Not exactly a lie._ "Now, drink."

She took the cup from him and tried to gulp it down, spilling it. He rolled his eyes, but took it and poured it down her throat himself, making sure she took it slowly so she wouldn't overwhelm her stomach. She was going to have a very difficult morning, and overloading her belly wouldn't help her. He repeated it with a second cup, wiping her chin where she'd dribbled a bit with one of the furs, finding himself smirking at her again despite his annoyance. She was usually so poised that seeing her like this was oddly enjoyable. He knew she'd be mortified in the morning.

"Drink this whenever you wake up," he said, pouring another cup and leaving it at her bedside. "You'll feel wretched if you don't."

"I already do," she groaned. He wanted to smooth his hand over her hair as he had in the Westerlands, but he didn't.

"Aye," he replied, quirking his brow. "I bet you do. Sleep's the best thing for it now."

He tucked her in, moving her legs and settling the furs around her. When he looked back at her, her face was already relaxed against the pillows though her eyes were still open. He couldn't resist, leaning over as he pushed a lock of her hair out of her face before turning to leave.

She reached out and grabbed his hand, pulling it to her chest. He clenched his jaw as he looked down on her, drinking in the sight of her, her hair messily framing her face where it had escaped its coil. Her eyes were shining even though she was still unable to focus them on him.

"Thank you, Sandor," she mumbled, pressing the back of his hand to her cheek. He smiled wryly and chucked her gently under the chin like she was Myrcella, willing himself to turn away once more. He closed the door behind him, pausing a moment to tilt his head back against the wood as he recovered himself, then moving back toward to hall with the sole purpose of getting completely, disconsolately drunk. Whatever would chase away the sight of her smiling up at him from a bed of furs.

He regretted it the next morning. He was ready to leave, stymied by the interminable waiting. He felt guilty, simply wanting her back with him in King's Landing, away from her family, from Benjen Stark and his handsome nephews. It was a terrible, selfish wish, to take her away again, and he found himself brooding over it as he sat next to Tyrion Lannister, pulling on his greaves. His head hurt and he squinted into the morning light, but at the very least he was faring better than the Imp.

Tyrion was sluggish, struggling to get his feet in his boots, still swaying slightly. It was quite possible he was still drunk.

"Rough night, Imp?" he ground out.

"If I get out of here without squirting from one end or the other it will be a miracle," he said, his voice rough with drink. A flicker of cold anger ran through Sandor's veins. He couldn't help but think back to that night at Casterly Rock, the Imp entreating her to consider what he'd said. Sandor was still more or less sure it was a marriage offer, and it made his blood boil to think that Tyrion was still going around fucking gods knew what when he may be married to her. If it were him- he couldn't finish the thought.

"Didn't take you for a hunter," he said churlishly.

"The greatest in the land. My spear never misses." There was a pugnacious pride to it that made Sandor want to punch him.

"It's not hunting if you pay for it," Sandor growled.

"Ah yes, and the Hound would be an impressive hunter, wouldn't he? Bred for it, I would think. Only I don't seem to see your quarry. Have you let it get away? I'm sure if you put forth some effort-"

"The fuck you talking about, Imp?"

"I never took you for a fool, Clegane. A brute. A dog. But never a fool. What she sees- ah, I have said too much already."

"What was that?" he demanded, his brain painfully clear.

Tyrion was already walking away, turning to smirk back at him with an exaggerated shrug as he staggered away. Sandor sat in agonizing bewilderment, wondering what, and who, the Imp meant. He lit on the one possibility that made sense, but he shook his head violently at the very thought. The little Lannister was still clearly drunk, and his head was so foggy he couldn't make sense of any of it.

 _Bloody fool_.

A/N: This is not my favorite chapter, but necessary all the same. In the original version, Benjen played a much bigger part, but it has morphed and changed so much. I just couldn't let him completely go by the wayside, so go gentle on this one, it's not my best. Forgive any typos! I'm trying to give you all what you want by Friday :-) It's just a matter of cleaning things up. Yep, dangling that carrot.

Thank you to everyone who has continued to leave comments: BarbyChan, Charlotte, Miss Luny, meurcy, purple-pygmy, knox, bellaphant, PtLacky...if I missed you, I'm sorry! It makes me so happy to see these names crop up again and again, and I'm so pleased you've stuck with me!

Special shout-out to MisfitCarter- I hope everything is on the up-and-up!

Read! Review! It makes me happy and keeps me motivated. Thank you for all of your kind words. They are, as always, very much appreciated.


	22. Chapter 22

Lenna XX

She did have a mild headache the next morning, but it was nothing in comparison to the overwhelming embarrassment she felt as soon as she'd awakened. The evening before came rushing back to her in a mortifying stream before she even opened her eyes, everything from the incredible amount of ale she'd consumed, the way Sandor had had to take care of her, to how she had practically thrown herself at him in an attempt to make him stay. She had groaned as she lay among the furs, remembering with terrible clarity exactly what had transpired.

She'd been thrilled when he'd lifted her in his arms like she weighed no more than a leaf, carrying her back to her rooms. She'd looped her arms around his thick neck, only when he tried to deposit her in her bed, she hadn't let him go, pulling their faces so close together she could feel his breath on her cheeks. She'd desperately wanted to kiss him, or rather, she'd wanted him to kiss her. She'd felt him press his lips to her temple as he carried her through the hall, and she had fiercely wanted to feel his mouth against hers.

She shuddered with the memory of her clumsy attempts to get him to stay. She blamed Tyrion for even putting the thought into her head that she should in the first place. Sandor had resisted, of course, had firmly but gently pushed her away. She knew he didn't want to, she knew he wanted to stay, she could see the struggle in the play of muscle along his jaw. It had been cruel to ask him, cruel to both of them. _Of course he didn't stay, you were drunk_. He wouldn't have taken advantage of her in that state, he was too close bound by his old, bloody oath. If he refused to even wrap his arm around her sober in the library, he certainly wasn't about to kiss her when she was inebriated.

So, she'd tried to kiss him, but he'd turned his face, giving her the scar instead. It was oddly smooth and firm beneath her mouth, the ridges hard and almost shocking. It hadn't disgusted her, in fact, it made her curious as to what the rest of it felt like, reminding her of the tabletop maps she'd seen in the capital. But now, instead of desire, she only felt disgust at her own behavior.

Tyrion was clearly leading about a little black beast of his own, and he had been throwing her odd looks all morning. It certainly wasn't helping aid her frame of mind. Even though he tried to get her attention, she refused to pay him any mind. She was too busy stewing, trying her best to get through Myrcella's lessons when Sansa Stark entered the solar, her eyes and nose red with tears.

"Good gods, Sansa, what is the matter?" Lenna asked, rising to her feet.

"It's Bran," she said weakly, her voice high pitched and strained. "Mother asked me to fetch you."

The girl promptly burst into fresh tears, her lower lip trembling as she covered her face with her hands. Lenna went to her without a thought.

"Take me to her," Lenna said gently, rubbing the girl's arms.

The cause of the girl's distress cast a pall over Winterfell. Her own struggles suddenly felt small and insignificant as word spread through the castle that Bran Stark had fallen from a high tower and might not survive. He was unconscious, stretched lifelessly across the bed with his direwolf curled up at his feet. Catelyn Stark, her blue eyes bloodshot and her face haggard, sat by his bedside from morning until night, twisting offerings to the old gods, praying to the new.

Lenna tried to make herself useful, taking both of the Stark girls with her when it was time for Myrcella's lessons. Sansa seemed glad of the distraction, quietly following along with Myrcella. She was a capable student, but prone to mooning over the romances. The younger one, Arya, had a wild streak that amused Lenna. She liked the girl's spirit, and her fierce concern for her brother was touching. The Stark sisters were about as opposite as they could be, and of course that meant they fought like cats. Lenna found it rather exhausting, and Myrcella watched wide eyed as they traded barbs. Sansa could quickly go from sweet to hateful, and Arya didn't even try to curb her tongue. Lenna tried to remind herself, and later Myrcella, that both girls were under a tremendous amount of pressure, both in light of their brother's injury and their own imminent departure from the only home they'd ever known.

Sandor appeared with the prince late the next afternoon. It was the first time she'd really seen him since the night of the banquet. Her cheeks went scarlet when he cut his eyes to her, glancing at her quickly from the corner of his eye. It occurred to her that he was wary of seeing her again, too. She smiled tremulously at him, relieved when he raised his eyebrow in return, his face relaxing ever so slightly.

"I am so very sorry about your brother, my lady," Joffrey said courteously. Lenna could hear the insincerity in his voice the moment he opened his mouth. "I am at your service, and of course your brother is in my prayers to the Seven."

Arya looked on with ill-concealed aversion, but Sansa's cheeks pinked in pleasure. Her voice and gaze were shy when she looked on the prince, thanking him for his consideration.

Lenna and Sandor briefly exchanged a worried look. Lenna would have given the girl credit for better sense, but remembered her own ways at thirteen. She, too, would have been flattered by the cajoling words or a prince, especially a handsome one like Joffrey. There were already whispers that the two would one day be wed, and Lenna quailed at the thought. She wished Joffrey Baratheon on no maid, even if she would be a queen.

Preparations to return to King's Landing were a subdued affair. There were no more celebrations, just practical considerations out respect for the family. The young Stark lad was still not awake. They left just a few days later, riding out at midday. She hadn't been able to speak with Sandor, and she was still embarrassed enough to wish to avoid him. He seemed rather intent on avoiding her, too, riding beside the prince with that damned helm on, the visor down. It was odd, but she could tell that he was trying not to watch her, forcing himself not to turn around and look. She was so accustomed to his gaze that the absence of it was palpable.

Her family travelled with the entourage as far as the fork to White Harbor. Lenna relished the opportunity to ride with them, though it did distress her when she had to bid them all farewell in the middle of the muddy road. Sandor had pulled alongside her, dismounting and holding Meena's reins for her as she hugged her father and brothers and pulled her darling nieces close out of sight of the queen. She had endeavored to keep up her part when the queen was in sight, not being overly affectionate or effusive with them until she had gone. They all seemed to understand, to play along, warmly polite to each other in public view, but sitting together late into the night in hall with music and laughing.

Wynna had tears in her eyes as they embraced, and it took all of Lenna's remaining control to let the girl go, her arms falling reluctantly by her sides. She stood and watched as they rode away, their backs as stiff as her own. _A family trait,_ she thought wryly. She pulled a handkerchief out of her pocket to wipe her eyes and nose. It was Sandor's, the one he'd offered her all those years ago in the Sept of the Snows, soft and plain. He had come to stand quietly next to her as she watched them go, and she wondered if he saw it. His eyes were doleful when he glanced down at her, and behind the cover of the horse's flank, he briefly wrapped his arm around her shoulders, pressing her lightly into his side, before nudging her back into her saddle.

It was an exhausting ride south. Tyrion had left them, going to the Wall with Jon Snow. She missed his company acutely, especially since something seemed to be weighing on Jaime. He would ride beside her, but he spoke little, care and worry creasing his brow, so distracted that when he tried to talk he would lose the thread of the conversation.

They rested at Castle Darry. It was near the Ruby Ford, and Lenna was grateful for the respite. She had been travelling almost continuously for two months, and she was tired of feeling like she was riding even when she lay down to sleep at night.

The countryside was beautiful, and she enjoyed rambling through it with Myrcella and Tommen, stretching their legs in forgotten ways. Myrcella was as much a chatterbox as ever, glad to be out of the wheelhouse in the sunshine, and Tommen was always a joy. The little boy had grown into a sweet and considerate child who openly adored his sister. Lenna could help but notice what a contrast he was with his elder brother. Joffrey seemed to grow more peevish and sullen with every day.

Not that it deterred Sansa Stark. The girl had become positively moony when it came to the prince. Lenna tried to be tolerant of the girl, reminding herself, as she did the princess, that Sansa was anxious to please and away from home for the first time. She remembered what that felt like, though she prayed the little grace never would. Even with her father there, Sansa Stark was more on her own now than she ever had been, her little sister vanishing more often than not. The queen had requested that Lenna befriend Lady Sansa in an attempt to make the girl's transition to court easier.

"A Northern face would be welcome, and she very well may be your queen one day," Cersei had said, tossing back a goblet of wine. "I'd like it if you'd take her under your wing."

She wished she'd had such a friend when she entered the Red Keep. _You did_ , she thought with a small smile.

Lenna assured the queen that she'd be more than happy to look after the girl, and try to rein in her wayward sister. She went walking with the Sansa one afternoon at Castle Darry, just the two of them, though the girl brought along her pet. Lenna was wary at first as the child's pet was no pet at all, but a direwolf. However, the huge beast was gentle and her name, Lady, suited her quiet and friendly nature. Even Lenna couldn't resist rubbing the wolf's ears as they walked, though it was all she could do not to roll her eyes at the girl's constant litany of Joffrey's virtues. She asked Lenna endless questions about 'her prince' and Lenna answered them as diplomatically as she could. It wouldn't do to tell her that Joffrey was cruel and vicious, not to mention petulant and obnoxious, though she did relate a choice childhood story or two.

Upon their return to the castle, they encountered a retinue of newly arrived guards, including two familiar faces. Lenna beamed broadly to see Renly Baratheon in his green armor and dignified Barristan Selmy in his Kingsguard white plate. The old man smiled at her as he spoke with Prince Joffrey.

Another figure emerged from the crowd, but this time Lenna didn't smile. Ilyn Payne was not a welcome sight to her. The gaunt man looked more like a wraith than a person, and while she had become accustomed to Sandor's fearsome looks, this man's weren't softened by his behavior or expression. His eyes were pale, his cheeks hollow, and the sight of him made Lenna's skin crawl.

She heard a startled gasp and turned slightly to see that Sansa Stark had stepped backward right into Sandor. He looked down at the girl, his face in its most neutral mask. At least, Lenna knew that it was. It was clear to her that the girl, well-bred as she may be, had not yet grown used to Sandor's face and was gaping at him rather openly.

The girl didn't know where to look, between Sandor or Payne, so she went down on her knees and wrapped her arms around her wolf's neck, burying her face in her fur. Lenna could only think that she had a lot of growing to do if she was going to survive in King's Landing, least of all become a queen.

Sandor flicked his eyes to her, his face carefully composed. He was thinking the same thing. Joffrey appeared beside them and Barristan Selmy and Renly Baratheon approached. They both made their courtesies to the prince before turning to the two young women.

"Lady Helenna, it is always a pleasure to see you. I hope the journey has been pleasant thus far," Selmy said, taking her hand in hers as she rose from her curtsy.

"It has been long, Ser Barristan, but uneventful. We are lucky that you have both joined us."

"We are the lucky ones," Renly said, looking from Lenna to Sansa. The girl had risen to stand beside her.

"Forgive me. This is Lady Sansa, Lord Eddard's eldest daughter. She's coming with her father to King's Landing. This is Ser Barristan Selmy, Sansa, the captain of the Kingsguard, and-"

"No, no, let her guess," Renly said, a solicitous smile on his lips. Lenna pursed her lips, amused by Renly's preening. Sansa looked up at him wide-eyed, but made quick work of placing his armor and antlered helm.

"You must be Lord Renly, the king's brother," she said politely, blushing under his eyes.

"Smart and pretty," Renly commented, taking her hand in his. The girl's cheeks pinked even more.

"My lords," the girl murmured, managing to bob a pretty curtsy, but cutting her eyes back to Ser Ilyn.

"He frightens me oft-times as well, sweet lady," Selmy said with a smile.

"My apologies, ser," Sansa said, making herself look at Ser Ilyn in the face. The man didn't respond, but turned and walked away.

"Ser Ilyn has not been feeling talkative these past fourteen years," Renly said with a smirk in Lenna's direction. She felt her cheeks go hot at the poor attempt at humor. "If you'll excuse us."

"Why did he not speak?" Sansa asked in a small voice, clearly worried she'd given some additional offense. Joffrey barked out a laugh.

"The Mad King ripped his tongue out. He can't."

Sansa went pale, looking to Lenna. She pressed her lips together in a quick attempt at a comforting smile.

"My lady," Joffrey continued. "Won't you walk with me? We are very near the Trident, and I would see the water."

The worry and discomfort that had been on her face evaporated in an instant, her blue eyes once again glowing.

"Of course," she agreed immediately. "Lady Helenna-"

"Will stay here. As will your dog. And mine," he said with a rakish grin, shooting at look at Sandor. Lenna's gut clenched in anger.

"Who will protect you, my prince?" Lenna asked, raising her eyebrow at Joffrey. He didn't intimidate her. She remembered him from his childhood only too well.

"I will," he said, tapping his scabbard. He was about as skilled with it as she was. She might actually be a better swordsman. Lenna did not roll her eyes, though she wanted to.

They watched as the two walked off together. Lady was tied to the wheelhouse axle, and Lenna felt sorry for her. She knelt to scratch between her ears.

"Big beast," Sandor said behind her.

"Indeed. Does she remind you of the ones you raised?"

"We didn't raise fucking wolves," he spat. She hid her laugh in the creature's fur.

She passed the afternoon with Myrcella and Tommen, taking them into the little woods around the castle and letting them run. Sandor accompanied them, and they stood in a clearing as the children played.

"They don't have the opportunity to do this nearly enough," Lenna said quietly.

"They have a role to play," he replied. "They are not like other children."

"It saddens me." She paused, looking for the right words. "Sandor, I feel I need to apologize. For my behavior in Winterfell."

He took a deep breath. "Nothing to apologize for."

"I was not myself," she said, looking up at him from under her eyelashes. "I hope I did not cause offense."

"You didn't," he replied, but he would not look at her.

"And I should thank you."

"No thanks. Not from you."

"Aye. You took care of me, just as you always do. It was appreciated."

He pressed his lips and nodded, looking at the children as they frolicked instead of at her. She felt her cheeks burn with shame. There was so much she wanted to say and couldn't, that she wasn't sorry that she'd asked him to stay, just that she'd been drunk. She was sorry she didn't have the courage to talk to him properly about this depth of feeling between them, sorry that she didn't have the words to...well, she didn't know. She had thought long about Tyrion's suggestion, that she take him as a _lover_. She could barely even think the word, and couldn't imagine proposing such a thing to him.

 _It would hurt him, if it wasn't done in the right way._

The silence that stretched between them now was uncomfortable in a way it never had been. Lenna felt regretful to have been the cause of it, wondering if she should have simply kept her mouth shut. Perhaps it had been wrong of her to bring that night up at all.

She didn't have long to think about it, both she and Sandor's heads going up when they heard the commotion from the direction of the castle. She called for the children and they came running, and they all hurried back to the Keep.

Sandor XX

He was almost glad for the distraction. She had been apologizing for her behavior the night of the banquet, and it was almost more than he could bear. He regretted it, too, but he had hoped there was some truth in her actions that night. He'd always agreed with the saying 'a drunk mans words are a sober man's thoughts,' and he felt almost sure that there had been a measure of truth in her wanting him to stay with her, her lips against his cheek.

It had bothered him at first, that she had kissed his scar. It made him deeply uncomfortable to have it touched, but later he took it to mean something else. She'd voluntarily laid her mouth to it, she hadn't shuddered or shrunk away. Even if she was drunk, he had a firm notion that she simply didn't care. That realization was sharpened by the Stark girl's reaction to backing into him earlier. She had looked up at him with those blue eyes so wide, forcing herself to meet his eye even though he could tell she was uncomfortable doing so. While she had been able to look at him, he had seen how he looked to her reflected back in her gaze. It wasn't a pretty sight. But when Lenna looked at him, it was a different. It was perhaps the thing about her he'd loved first, that she looked at him the same way she did people with fair, whole faces, not a hint of revulsion. There was nothing in her eyes that indicated she saw anything but _him_ , not the scarred man, but just Sandor. He knew that she didn't see him as the Hound, she just saw her friend.

 _Friend_ , he thought bitterly.

The melancholy reverie was destroyed when they returned to the castle. The yard was in a furor, and they all made their way into the Ploughman's Hall. There the king was in high dudgeon.

Joffrey was seated near his mother, a rough bandage on his arm with two faint pinpricks of blood. Sandor furrowed his brow, the queen immediately finding him in the crowd.

"Where were you, dog, when your prince was being attacked."

"I dismissed him, mother," Joffrey simpered. "Ow."

Sandor's eyes narrowed. The queen hushed him, smoothing a hand over his golden, priggish head. Sandor's eyes quickly found a snivelling Sansa Stark, the girl's pale face blotchy and red from crying.

"What the devil happened?" King Robert demanded.

Eddard Stark came in like windstorm, several of his guards at his back and his face nearly feral with worry. "Your grace," he said. "Arya is gone."

"Gods," the King railed, looking around himself. "Find her. Go!"

Sandor briefly touched Lenna on the elbow before going out into the yard. Search parties were formed, and he was put in charge of one of them. He saddled and mounted Stranger, riding off into the direction the girl was last seen.

They searched for four days before the girl was finally found, but not by his men. They returned as the girl was being questioned by the king and queen. Sandor hung back by the door, easily able to see over the heads of the assembled retainers as the little Stark girl was petulantly defending herself.

"Why was she not brought to me first, your grace?" There was thunder in Ned Stark's voice as he strode into the hall. He went immediately to his daughter, catching her up in his arms and admonishing her for running away. Sansa stood to the side, Lenna behind her, one hand on the girl's shoulder.

"I'm sorry, Father, I'm sorry," Arya cried, tears running down her face.

"What happened? Where have you been?"

"Your daughter attacked my son, her prince," Cersei said, venom lacing her tone. She looked over at Joffrey, holding his bloody arm like it had been savaged. Sandor grunted deep in his throat.

"I did not!" Arya protested. "I was playing with Mycah, then the prince threatened him with his sword. Mycah only had a wooden one, a toy, but the prince wanted to fight him with real steel. So I...so I hit him with a stick. The prince came after me, pinned me against the tree, and Nymeria...she...she bit him. I called her off, but she didn't attack him, not like he says."

"My son disagrees," Cersei said savagely. "He was attacked. I want her disciplined and I want the wolf dead."

"Cersei," the king interrupted. "They're children. The boy has a bite."

"He could have lost his arm. That girl and her friend ambushed your son, the crown prince, and went after him with clubs, set a _wolf_ on him-"

"Yes," Joffrey said. "They attacked me, Father!"

"Liar!" yelled the little Stark, pulling against her father's grip. Sandor couldn't help but admire her. She had spirit. He wondered how long it would last.

"Control your daughter, Ned," the king bellowed. "I don't know who to believe, my own son or your daughter." He was red-faced with exasperation.

"If you'll permit me, your grace," Lenna said. "Lady Sansa was there as well. Perhaps she could clarify matters."

Sansa looked at Lenna in fear, but she stepped forward to stand next to her father.

"Well?" the king asked.

"I...I...I don't remember, your grace."

"What do you mean? What happened?"

"It happened so fast, I don't know. I don't remember." _She's a bad liar_ , Sandor thought in disappointment. Her future in the capital was looking more and more grim.

"Liar," her sister hissed, lunging toward her sister, and Sansa shrieked.

"How can we believe her?" Cersei asked, rage in her modulated voice. "She's positively wild. I insist that she be punished for what she did to my son."

"Look, Ned," the king said, frustrated and tired by the business. "You discipline your daughter and I'll discipline my son. We can't get a straight story out of either of them, so I assume there must be fault on both sides."

"How can you-" Cersei protested.

"Silence."

"I demand that the beast be killed. One hundred gold dragons to whoever brings me its pelt," Cersei said.

"Where is the wolf?" the king demanded, speaking directly to the girl.

"Gone," Arya said lowly.

"Then I demand the skin of the other," Cersei said.

The elder Stark girl started to cry loudly. "Not Lady. Lady didn't do it, she didn't do anything wrong. You can't kill her!"

"Your grace-" Lord Stark began.

"A direwolf isn't a pet, Ned. Get the girl a dog. She'll be happier for it."

"Whoever gives the order must carry it out," Lord Stark said gravely. The king looked at him with a touch of scorn, stalking out of the hall. The queen remained in her seat, her gaze imperious as she watched the distraught Stark girls sobbing. Arya was wrapped up in her father's arms, and Sansa had buried her head against Lenna's breast. Lenna found Sandor's eyes over the crowd and pressed her lips together in an unhappy line.

They left, Lenna following the eldest Stark girl when the queen nodded sharply at her. She glanced at him briefly, her eyes dark with distress. The assembled retinue began to disband in a flurry of whispers, and Sandor went to go.

"Hound."

He stopped, closing his eyes tight before he turned back to look at the queen. He found the will to walk the twenty paces to where she was seated.

"Your grace?"

"I want you to bring the boy to me. Dead or alive." There was a mad glint in her eye, and he glanced between she and Joffrey. The prince had a smirk playing around his mouth that made Sandor's hand itch to backhand him. Instead, he nodded deeply and stalked out of the room.

He called for Stranger to be brought to him and mounted him swiftly. It didn't take long to find the boy, a chubby lad with a shock red hair. _Dead or alive_ , he thought. He felt sick, weighing what to do. He normally had no compunction about following out these kinds of orders. He didn't care what happened to most of the men he'd fought, killed, or captured for them. He did what he was told, and he did it well. This situation had to be weighed however, and he looked at the boy as the considered the options. There were of course, only two.

He could capture the boy and take him back to the queen and Joffrey. They would take him back to the Black Cells and he would be Joffrey's plaything for a while until he tired of the game and had him killed. He would die a long, painful death.

Or he could make it clean. One thrust, thirty seconds, and then it would be over.

He clenched his jaw and dug his spurs into Stranger's sides, the boy understanding what was about to happen and turning heel to flee.

Ned Stark was exiting the kennel when he returned, the boy's corpse still bleeding across his saddle.

"Gods, you ran him down," Lord Stark breathed, rage in his face.

"He ran," Sandor replied icily, leaving the boy's body in a heap on the ground. "But not very fast."

Lord Stark looked him dead in the eye, but said nothing.

Sandor walked past him, leading Stranger into the quiet of the stables. He roughly fumbled with the girth, removing the saddle with more force than necessary. He was angry. The horse looked at him, a narrow rim of white around his eye, and Sandor struggled to calm himself. The beast's withers were wet with the boy's blood. He went for a bucket of water and a brush, carefully rinsing his coat, keenly aware of how red the water ran as it sluiced off Stranger's sides.

He kept at it until the water ran clear, and he was working on drying him off when he heard the footsteps behind him. He didn't need to turn around to know it was her. He didn't turn to her, but she didn't speak either.

"He shouldn't have run," he whispered raggedly, leaning his head into Stranger's flank.

"What have you done, Sandor?" she demanded, her voice hard and low with horror. She'd have already heard, then.

He grimaced, baring his teeth. "I have never lied to you about what I am."

"What have you done?"

"I killed him," he answered plainly, like he was saying he'd shoed a horse, or mended a fence. It was his profession, after all.

"The butcher's boy?"

"Aye." He managed to stand up straight, beginning to run the towel over Stranger's coat again. He felt her come stand next to him, struggling to keep his face slack, unbearably aware of how close she was, wondering how she could stand to be near him.

"Why?" she asked lowly, and he could feel her eyes on his face. He tilted his head forward so his hair swung between them. It was sweaty and limp and did little to disguise him. She was on his right, the scar between them, his hair scant on that side to begin with. He felt like a depraved monster with her eyes on him like that.

"It's what I do, remember? It's what I'm good at."

"You didn't have to," she whispered.

"Didn't I?" he demanded, feeling the steel of anger. He did have to. Killing was what made him useful to them, what kept his place. "What choice did I have, Lenna?"

"You could have brought him back alive."

"Maybe I just wanted to kill him. It's been a long time since I had the chance. It is the sweetest-"

"Don't you dare say that to me again." Her tone was surprisingly firm but free of anger, and he hazarded a look at her. She was turned to him, looking up into his face with her own like the smooth surface of a lake. There was no expression there, and it calmed him. Whatever she was thinking, she was concealing it. That, or she was waiting to decide what to think until she'd heard him out.

"There is nothing sweet about riding down a defenseless boy, Sandor.'

"No. But those were my orders."

"She told you to kill him."

"She told me to bring him back. Dead or alive."

"And you chose dead. Why did you choose dead?" Her voice was subtly rising in pitch, her breath hitching, and he felt like she was screaming at him.

"It would have been worse," he choked. "If I'd caught him and brought him back. It would have been worse."

"How? How could it be worse than dying over a childhood scuffle?"

He looked at her, not wanting to talk about this, about the Black Cells and what went on there. He wasn't a torturer. He didn't enjoy making men suffer that didn't deserve it. But Cersei did, and he had seen enough of Joffrey to believe that he would, too. He thought about all the little, almost innocuous violences he'd seen the queen commit, including the one's against Lenna herself. She may have never hurt the girl bodily, but hadn't Cersei tormented her for years, isolating her, more or less turning her prisoner into her servant through confinement and lack of love? The queen had no conscience, nothing beyond doing what best served her, _them,_ and that included whatever would have befallen the butcher's boy. The lad would have been tortured, his inevitable death stretched out for days or weeks or months.

"They'd have tortured him. You don't know what they're capable of. I do."

"Who?"

"Joffrey, her," he said, unable to say more. Her eyes narrowed, that furrow appearing between her brows. He always wanted to kiss it when it appeared, but now the very thought made him feel like tucking his tail between his legs and cowering.

"Gods, Sandor," she whispered, and he looked away, unable to bear the sight of her face, and he couldn't stand to see if she was looking at him with revulsion, or pity, or worse, fear. It was something that kept him sane, the knowledge that she didn't fear him, that she trusted him, knew he wouldn't harm her. Never. But now she'd seen what he was capable of, what he could do and had done countless times, and he found that difficult to think about. He walked away from her, hoisting the saddle up so he could work on getting the boy's blood out of the leather. It would surely smell for weeks.

"I'm damned to the seven hells anyway," he said darkly, wiping the leather in long strokes, trying to soothe himself with the methodical movement of the cloth over the saddle. It wasn't killing that bothered him. There were many times where it wasn't a choice, and he wouldn't be standing there if he hadn't done it. He believed that most of the men he'd killed had deserved it, either for their own evils or simply because they were too stupid to avoid it. If they didn't deserve it, it mattered little, it was done and there was no bringing them back, even the boy. He regretted that he'd had to do it, not that he'd done it, but he could see what it would look like to her. Lenna, who had never seen violence like that, though she'd endured a barrage of silent cruelty for years. What worried him most was the possibility that they way she looked at him would change, and it would have nothing to do with the fucking scars, that she'd see _him_ , but it would be him that made her cringe. The prospect was agony.

He heard a soft sniffling and turned to look at her only to find her crying. He didn't have the strength to comfort her tears, not right now.

"What are you crying for?" he asked, not bothering to check his irritation.

"You," she replied simply. He humphed, a deep, yawning crack opening in his chest. "Do you feel nothing?" He heard the desperation in her voice, willing him to show some human reaction.

"Aye," he replied tightly, scrubbing at the leather as if he were rubbing out Joffrey's face. If the boy hadn't been such a cunt, if his cunt mother hadn't been so cruel, he wouldn't need to be doing this with her. Ever. "Do you think I'm some kind of monster? I know I look like I belong in a fairy story, but I'm just…"

"Just what?"

"I'm not a monster!" he roared, turning to her. He was breathing hard, taking great gulps of air, trying valiantly to quell the panic that was rising inside of him. Hearing it out loud, in his own voice, was gratifying, and it silenced some of the racket that was bludgeoning his brain. He felt like a monster, he looked like a monster, and gods save him, he acted like one, too. For all his belief that killing was often necessary, what he hated most was his lack of power. He hadn't killed because he'd wanted to or needed to. He'd killed because he'd been told to, just like a hound on a hunt running down a fox, the choice he'd been given no choice at all.

He kicked out viciously, splashing the contents of the bucket across the room, splattering her skirts and startling Stranger. His fist came down heavily on the leather of his saddle again and again, until the pain in his hands gave him enough to focus on that he could stop and stand upright again.

"No," came the soft reply, "you're not. You are not a monster, Sandor Clegane."

He looked at Lenna where she stood, her little white hands balled into fists at her side. Her face was oddly defiant, her pointed chin raised, looking as imperious as a queen.

"I'm just a killer of little boys. Of fragile things. Nothing but a damned dog," he whispered brokenly. He saw her start, sure that she was going to fly from him, wishing that she would. He wasn't fit to even look at her, let alone breathe the same air. He tiredly wished she would just leave him be.

But she didn't leave. She crossed the distance between them slowly and he looked up at her, knowing how he must look with his heaving chest and wild eyes. She reached out slowly, like he was a skittish horse, and ran her hand over his hair, over his cheek and beard, resting her palm on his cheek. Gods help him, he turned his face into her hand, and when his knees inexplicably buckled, she went down with him, her arms around his neck. He didn't care that he was crushing her, and he clutched her tightly to him, fingers digging into her back. He buried his face in her neck, just as she so often had him, and gritted his teeth against the horrible feeling of tears reaching up to strangle him.

 _Just like a damned dog, you're so fucking grateful she's not kicking you, not chasing you off with a stick. You don't give two shits about the boy, not really, only what it would have meant if he'd cost you_ _ **her**_ _._

She cradled him awkwardly against her, swaying slightly like he was a child and not a massive beast who had just killed an innocent boy in cold blood, her lips against his ear, her humming sweet. He felt himself go slack against her, leaning into her warmth as her hands ran through his hair. She was humming one of her bloody hymns, one to the Mother. She cradled his face in her hands and wiped the tears from his cheeks with her fingers, and he didn't flinch when she caressed the scar, her fingers a soft whisper against the deadened flesh. She held his eyes, and he clung to their light like a man dangling from a cliff might cling to a root, hoping against hope it was enough to keep him from falling. She was still looking at him when she leaned her forehead against his, and his hands rose to her shoulders, then her neck, until he was framing her face with his fingers, the fragile curve of her skull cupped in his hands.

 _You could crush it, but would you if they told you to?_ It was not something that brought him comfort.

"I'm sorry," he said thickly, but he wasn't even sure what he meant.

"I know," she replied, brushing the hair off of his forehead, running her hand along his beard. "I know you are, Sandor. Now hush."

"I'm damned." That he meant. He was. Plain and simple, a man without honor or even the backbone to say no when his master whistled. _If you'd refused, who would see her safe? Something's coming._

"Then I'll pray for you," she whispered. "I don't know what else you could have done, Sandor. You were in an impossible position. You cannot deny the queen, yet you did the boy a mercy. A terrible mercy, but a mercy all the same."

He closed his eyes, slouching back until his back rested against the stall. Her terrible, innocent faith in him, her pardon, was enough to make him tremble. How he wanted to be that man she saw. She sat beside him in silence, and it was a long time before she left him. Before she went, he felt her turn to him, carefully laying her hands on his cheeks again as she pulled his face close and laid her lips against his forehead.

He couldn't look at her, terrified to his core that she'd see through to the dark part of him if he did. At that moment, he wondered which he would have preferred: fire, or Lenna Manderly's eyes.

A/N: SO CLOSE, PEOPLE! This one was hard to write, and I hope it satisfies enough to tide over until Friday. Thank you for your gentle words about Ch. 21. I did struggle with posting it, and I greatly appreciate your encouragement.

Read and Review!

Look out for another on Friday. I found a massive plot hole that I'm working to fill in, but that carrot is getting closer. I just hope it's a big enough carrot!


	23. Chapter 23

Lenna XXII

The morning of the Hand's Tourney dawned bright and clear. She was already up and dressed, her hair coiled around her head, waiting on the children in the breakfast room. Really, though, she was waiting on him. She had risen early, hastily putting on a green and yellow gown as she waited for the maid. The servants were always busy on tourney days, there were many ladies who needed their services, but because she was expected to attend on the queen and Myrcella she had to be one of the first ready.

The girl who did her hair yawned continuously as she plaited and coiled it into the mass low on the back of her head. She'd threaded Lenna's green ribbon through it, the frayed ends tucked deep into the arrangement. Lenna had dabbed the rouge on her cheeks and lips herself, though she had the girl line her eyes with the kohl. Her nerves were such that her hand wasn't steady enough for the job.

She was standing in the window, her stomach trembling in the cold way it tended to when she rose too early or was too excited. Or, in this case, was too nervous. She'd been there for almost an hour on her own, working up her courage. A handkerchief with the Manderly arms was tucked into her sleeve, one that she hadn't carried in years. It had long ago been replaced by the plain linen Sandor had given her, one which she touched almost compulsively, her fingers tracing against its softness like a talisman.

The one in her sleeve she had embroidered as a young girl in a bout of homesickness. In that first year in King's Landing she had made enough to fill a chest, stitching the white merman against the blue like it was some charm against the loneliness. Her fingers were trembling slightly when she touched it, making sure it was still there, the dye making it much stiffer than the one she favored, but it was more than appropriate for its task.

She planned to give it to him before the children arrived, to carry with him through the day. It was a foolish idea, and she had no idea how he would react to it, but she had decided she had try. She could no longer bear the tension between them, and she knew if she waited for him then it would never be addressed. She had cast about for the only available ways for a lady to declare her feelings, and lit on giving him her favor. He might scoff, he might refuse her, but he would at least know. Her only worry was the possibility he may think she was laughing at him. That thought she couldn't abide.

The door creaked open and she turned, smiling a bit too brightly as he walked through the door. He had also made an effort with his appearance, his armor polished to a high sheen. It was the same old suit, he refused to have another one made, and today he was wearing a yellow tabard on top of it with his House's black dogs hunting across his chest.

"Good morning," she said, her voice a little shrill in her own ears. "You're competing." She chided herself for sounding like an imbecile.

"As you see," he said roughly. He was scowling already. He was already famous for his glower, but it had been even more pronounced in the weeks since the business with the butcher's boy. In the scant weeks since they'd arrived back in King's Landing he had been distant. Myrcella's lessons had come to a stuttering standstill as the Keep acclimated to the addition of Ned Stark's household. Lenna was still with the princess daily, but Sandor was often unneeded as they sat in the solar. She gleaned that instead he had been accompanying the prince. She had missed him, and even when they were in the same room he had trouble meeting her eye as he had. She was put in mind of their return from White Harbor, when he had pulled away from her so abruptly, and it made her almost as unhappy.

"I hoped you might do something for me," she said evenly, holding her breath to hold on to her courage, praying she'd be able to remain poised to keep him from seeing how much it really meant to her. Just in case.

"Today?" he asked, his brow furrowed together in slight annoyance.

"It's just a little thing," she replied, reaching into her sleeve and producing the handkerchief. She held it toward him. She felt like a fool. "I was hoping you'd carry this during the tourney."

He stared at her without moving, his eyes fixated on her own before flicking to the fabric. Her heart started pounding. He was taking too long to speak. _This was a ridiculous idea_ , she chastised herself. _You know how he feels about knights and ladies and all of that 'horseshit.'_ Still, she'd begun, and she must finish it, whatever he said, so she moved closer, taking his hand in her own and pressing the cloth in it.

"What for?" he asked, gray eyes full. Hope stuttered in her chest.

"I believe a lady may grant a favor," she said quietly. "To bring her chosen competitor luck."

He was still staring at her, his hand laying open in hers, only loosely gripping the handkerchief. Her stomach began to quiver, the mad courage failing.

"Will you take it or not?" she asked, willing her voice not to tremble. This gruff disbelief was not one of the scenarios she'd imagined. She'd hoped for pleasure, anticipated anger, but hadn't anticipated disbelief.

If she hadn't known him better, she may not have seen the flash of feeling across his face, the slight relaxation of his brow. His fingers curled up around the cloth, pressing it into his palm in acceptance.

"Wouldn't want to hurt your feelings," he said lowly, but there was a quirk at the corner of his mouth. She wanted very badly to lean up on her tiptoes and kiss it. Each time he smirked at her she wanted to know what it would feel like under her lips. It was becoming harder and harder not to find out.

It was consuming her thoughts. That evening in the stables, when he was in such a fury of feeling, he had turned to her, hiding his face in her neck after killing that boy, and it had taken all of her self-control not to cover his face in kisses, scar and all. Only the thought of his pain, of comforting that violent war he was waging with himself, was enough to keep her from it.

"Your golden Ser Jaime wouldn't take it then?" he asked, a hard glint in his grey eyes despite the teasing of his voice. _Still jealous_ , she thought. It made her heart beat a bit quicker.

"I have never offered it to him. Or anyone else, for that matter," she said softly. "I've never had a champion before you."

For a moment, he looked stunned, as if her words had landed on him forcefully, but there was a glimmer of pleasure, too.

"Not even in your younger days?" he retorted, his good eyebrow quirking. Watching his brow lighten was like watching the clouds scatter before the sun. He was just as changeable as the weather, going from dark brooding to wicked humor in an instant.

"You wound me, Sandor," she said with mock indignation, placing a hand over her breast, deciding to make light of whatever strange mood had overtaken him, just pleased that he'd taken the bloody thing. "But you know I haven't. In my experience, knights aren't much interested in ladies who want to talk about history and politics. Too busy talking about their own… accomplishments."

"I don't mind listening to you," he replied, back to not looking at her. He was carefully folding the handkerchief, laying the edges together before slipping it into the gap between this breastplate and hauberk. Her heart glowed with delight.

"Ah," she replied, holding up a finger, a smile twisting her lips to hide her breathlessness. "But as you've said, more times than I can count, you're not a knight."

It was as if she had startled the chuckle out of him, because it was more a bark then a laugh. Her heart swelled to see the grooves that framed his oddly beautiful mouth deepen, his even teeth flashing white.

The door creaked open again and he moved away from her to look out the window, he wary of being caught standing too close to her.

The nurse came in, distracted by the children. Myrcella was dressed in pink, her hair done up in the imitation of an lady's. Lenna didn't like it. The girl was already growing up too fast. Joffrey was even there, scowling and looking imperious as he lounged in his chair. His arm was still bandaged, and Lenna scoffed at him to herself. He was exploiting the bite for all it was worth.

She sat and ate with Myrcella and Tommen, trying to still her stomach with a pastry and a cup of tea. It would be hours before they ate again, and she didn't want to be faint.

"I wish you were going to be in the box with us," Myrcella said, reaching for another piece of fruit.

"I'll be close by," Lenna replied. "Front row, as always."

"Of course she's not going to be in the box, Cella," Joffrey drawled. "She's barely more than a servant."

"Watch your tongue, Joff. Lady Helenna has always been kind to you, and she's far from a servant."

Lenna enjoyed watching Joff's arrogant little face go white at the sound of his uncle's voice.

"Good morning, Ser Jaime," she said, and Jaime came to sit beside her, his white plate dazzling in the morning sun as it streamed through the windows.

"Good morning, dear Lenna," he replied, brushing his fingers over the back of her hand. "Aren't you just a-quiver with excitement?" He popped a grape into his mouth and chewed it noisily. "I hear that you do love a tourney."

She looked back at him flatly with a purse of her lips.

"I'm excited," Myrcella said. "I can't wait to see all of the knights and their armor. Uncle Jaime, and Ser Loras, and Sandor."

Joff looked at his sister slowly. "He's not a knight, 'Cella. He's just a dog." He pushed away from the table. "I've had enough of this stupid chatter."

They all sat silently as he left. Jaime popped another grape into his mouth, his face carefully blank.

They walked to the tourney grounds, she and Myrcella and Tommen. They could have taken a litter, but she'd suggested that they stretch their legs since they'd be sitting all day. The queen and Ser Jaime rode behind. Sandor walked with them, leading Stranger by the bit. She knew he didn't want to tire the mount by riding. He'd been curried extensively, his coat a glossy black, the yellow blazon of his master cast across his quarters. He pranced like he was proud of himself, and Lenna thought he had plenty of cause to be. He was magnificent. They both were. She may have been imagining things, but it seemed to her that Sandor was holding his chin up a little higher than usual.

She settled into her usual spot, Jaime handing her a cup of wine over the railing with a white flash of teeth. The tourney began with an unusual amount of fanfare. Jousts were not uncommon at Robert's court as he loved the spectacle, but Lenna couldn't recall one on this scale before. The one for Joffrey's nameday had been grand enough, and it was small by comparison. Of course, it was all in tribute to the King's new Hand.

Lenna hadn't seen Lord Stark and his daughters since they arrived in the capital, but she thought that he had aged ten years in the short span of weeks. When he took his seat with his daughters he looked almost haggard. Arya Stark looked like she was going to itch to death inside that dress, her little body wriggling with impatience and discomfort. Her hair had had been done up like it had been at the Winterfell banquet, and Lenna did not envy the maid that had been sent to do that job. Lenna hid a smile, sympathizing with the girl. She hated these things, too. Beside Arya sat her pretty older sister, demure and lovely in her own gown, her hair streaming around her shoulders like flames. When she saw Lenna, she waved, making her way over and sitting on the bench beside her. _The child is strikingly pretty_ , Lenna thought, reaching out to greet her properly. She'd grow into a real beauty with her fiery hair and eyes the color of cornflowers. Her face was suffused with excitement, her cheeks pink, as the competitors started their review, putting their horses through their paces, shouting their battle cries.

Lenna almost rolled her eyes.

"Here we go," said a slick voice. She turned see that Petyr Baelish had taken the vacant seat behind her. Lenna stood when he did, masking her distaste by clapping as the competitors took their places.

It was time for the tilts to start. When she looked behind her, Sandor and Ser Jaime had vanished, no doubt preparing for their turns. She was pleased to see Jory Cassel unseat two riders early on. She had liked the man when they'd met in Winterfell. He would be a welcome addition in the Keep, and she was disappointed when he was defeated by Lothor Brune. And it was a treat to see old Barristan Selmy, a man who always had a kindly look for her, triumph against two younger riders before being defeated, with a gesture of regret, but Jaime Lannister.

Jaime appeared before the box to take a glass of wine, keeping his horse prancing as he drank. He'd already had three victories that morning.

"You look anxious, my lady," he said, tossing back the contents of his goblet.

"It's noisy," she said quietly. Truthfully, she was anxious. As much as she wanted Sandor to do well, she was afraid for him.

A rider appeared at the end of the tiltyard bearing his familiar yellow and black tabard. Her interest piqued, and Jaime Lannister turned to see who she was looking at with such avid interest. But it wasn't Sandor. If possible, this man was even more massive than Sandor, his mount looking positive diminutive under his bulk. She understood the name now, the Mountain that Rides.

"Have you never seen the Mountain before, Lady Helenna?" Jaime asked, smirking at the look of horror on her face. "The Hound is the runt of that litter."

A slight young knight was waiting on the other end of the yard. He was flying the colors of the Vale.

"Who is he?" Lenna asked, breathless, nameless fear settling in her gut.

"Ser Hugh of the Vale. Flouting his lady's orders, no less. Lady Lysa forbid her men from riding."

"Why?"

"Mourning? Who knows, she's an odd duck," Jaime replied, reining his horse around to better view the bout.

It wasn't going to be a contest, there was no way the other knight was going to beat the Mountain, but neither did any of them anticipate what happened. When the Mountain's lance struck Ser Hugh's armor, it splintered and slid upward, driving into the young man's neck. He fell from his horse limply, grasping at his throat, the blood gurgling through the rough hole in his skin, pouring from his mouth.

"For gods' sake, Lenna, look away," Jaime hissed.

She couldn't look away, but she did see Cersei grab Myrcella and pull her close, and Lord Stark did the same with his girls. The Mountain made his round in front of the royal box, his visor lifted. She was so stunned that she didn't avert her gaze when his eyes met hers. They were dark, not at all like his brother's grey ones, no spark of intelligence in their depths. Eyes like an animal's. He leered, and she looked away. _No wonder he hates him_ , she thought.

She closed her eyes and said a prayer for the young knight, his broken and bloody body carried from the yard on a litter. It was hard to derive any pleasure from the matches, though she did make herself cheer when Sandor tilted. He neatly unseated opponents she had no doubt of him beating, but it was nearly an hour before her attention was truly called to the end of the yard, again caught by the black and yellow of his blazon.

They were getting close to the end of the day's contests and he was still in the running. He'd been performing brilliantly, actually. He sat astride Stranger, his snarling helm gleaming. He steadied the lance, tossing it to firm up his grip. At the opposite end of the tournament yard was Renly Baratheon, resplendent in his bright green armor and his gold-antlered helm. He'd been sitting a few rows behind Lenna for the morning, pleasantly talking with his companions. He'd smiled at her once or twice when she turned, handsome with his black hair and blue eyes. She wondered if the King had once looked at him. It put her in mind of strange Ser Davos, who had remarked on how alike the Baratheon brothers looked. She hoped Renly didn't let himself grow fat and lazy like his kingly brother did. It would be a pity.

The signal fell and the two men careened down the yard toward each other. Lenna held her breath, her hands clenched on her thighs. Renly was no match for Sandor in size, but it wasn't that uncommon for a slighter man to win in a joust. It wasn't a melee. On the first pass, they both scored points and retained their seats. On the second, Sandor struck, but his lance didn't shatter and Renly didn't fall. It was on the third pass that he was able to strike Renly first, powerfully, the black and yellow lance splintering and the younger Baratheon sent violently over the back of his horse, his antlered helm fracturing from the force of it. Renly leaped to his feet, but quickly bent down to pick something off the ground. When Sandor took his turn, Renly proffered it to him, and it shone golden in the sunlight. Sandor took it, a long length of the helm's antlers, broken off from the violence of his opponent's fall.

To her consternation, the crowd booed. She knew that Renly was popular, but it made her blood boil. She made sure to rise to her feet applauding. When he passed, she smiled broadly at him, and even though she couldn't see his eyes for his visor, she knew he saw her.

That night at the banquet, Lenna was irritated to see him standing guard rather than enjoying the meal like the other competitors. She was seated with Myrcella, Sansa Stark to her right. The girl was next to Joffrey, and she tried to ignore her peals of delighted laughter. Joffrey was being particularly solicitous, though she knew it was because he'd been threatened within an inch of his life by his mother the day before. It had been decided. He would be betrothed to Sansa Stark, and he was instructed to start treating her with the care and respect she deserved as such.

Lenna was tired, not looking forward to another full day of contests. She did have a vested interest in the jousts, however, wanting very much to see if Sandor would continue as he had, rousting one opponent after another. She felt an irrational pride in the fact that she knew her handkerchief was tucked into his armor. Part of her wished he could carry it openly as some of the other knights did, wrapped around the grip of his lance or threaded through Stranger's bridle.

The melee was to take up the morning. She couldn't abide it. So much noise and chaos, and all of it happening so quickly she could barely follow who was winning and who wasn't. The king was loudly pledging to fight in it himself, growing drunker by the second.

"My love, would that be wise?" the queen protested. The king ignored her, continuing to boast about his past victories.

Again and again the queen protested, always in that maddeningly moderated tone of voice that she employed so well.

"No!" the king exploded, slamming down his wine. "You do not tell me what to do, woman! I am king here, do you understand? I rule here, and if I say that I will fight tomorrow, I will fight!"

He was red-faced in his anger, his jowls shaking beneath his beard in rage. The hall grew astonishingly silent, and Lenna felt uneasy. Without a word, the queen rose and walked gracefully out of the room. If Lenna wasn't so stunned, she might have admired her dignity.

Ser Jaime approached the king to calm him, but as soon as he got close enough, the king pushed him away, knocking him off balance and sending his own Kingsguard sprawling. She saw Jaime's teeth clench and his cheeks go red with rage as he was helped from the floor.

"I could still knock you in the dirt, Lannister," the king snarled. "If I had my warhammer, no one could stand before me."

"As you say, your grace," Jaime muttered, his fair face dark with fury.

The merriment after that felt a little forced, everyone exchanging knowing looks and nods over the rims of their cups. It had evidently embarrassed Joffrey as he turned to Sansa rather suddenly.

"It's getting rather late, don't you think, my lady?"

Sansa made some sound of acquiescence.

"Here, let us find you an escort back to your rooms. You must want to rest for tomorrow."

Sansa nodded, but the light had gone out of her face.

"I'll go with her, my prince," Lenna said, rising. "Come, Sansa."

"No, there are far too many strange knights about for me to send two ladies out alone. My Hound will see you back." He beckoned Sandor over. He approached slowly, as if wary.

Sansa looped her hand through Lenna's elbow, drawing her close enough to whisper.

"I am glad you are with me. I would be frightened to go with him alone."

Lenna weighed her response. "He may be fearsome to look at, child, but remember that outsides and insides are often in opposition. You will not find a more honest man in the Red Keep than Sandor Clegane. He would never harm you." There was so much she wanted to be able to tell her, so much she wanted to warn her about. She only hoped the girl didn't learn the hard way how deceiving appearances could be, but she imagined the end of that story would not be a happy one for Sansa Stark.

Sansa looked at her, then flicked her wide eyes up. Sandor looked down at her, his face carefully neutral.

She and Sansa talked quietly as they went back to her chambers in the Tower of the Hand. She hugged the girl briefly before she disappeared into her rooms, turning back to Sandor.

It was chilly, and she wrapped her arms around herself as they started the long walk back to the Holdfast. It would have been more efficient to see Lenna back first, but she wanted the time. From the troubled expression on his face, she wagered he did, too.

"The little bird will have a hard time here," he said lowly.

"Little bird?" she asked, a hint of laughter in her voice.

"She repeats the shit her septa tells her like a stupid little bird."

"Goodness, Sandor," Lenna breathed. "Do I have such a nickname, too? I shudder to think what you'd come up with for me."

"You don't need one," he replied, looking down. "Lenna is enough."

Something in her went still at the way he said her name. He said it so often, but it sounded awfully like an endearment when he let his tongue linger on its sounds.

"You rode well today," she said, the tension between them strong as spider-silk and just as delicate . "My favor brought luck, it seems."

"Not hard to unseat little knights," he replied.

"Still," she allowed. "You'll advance tomorrow. You need your rest if you're to win."

They'd reached her door, and when she turned she laid her hand on his elbow. He looked down on it, his jaw working and his brow knotted. He dug around in his hauberk and produced a pouch. For a terrible second, she thought he would try to give her favor back.

"Here," he said, producing the contents of the bag. It was the piece of Renly Baratheon's antler.

"What have I done to deserve your trophy?" she asked, taking it. The metal was warm in her hand from where it had laid against his chest. "It's worth a small fortune."

"It is mine to give," he said gruffly.

"Thank you," she replied, her heart beating strangely. "I'll treasure it. My first memento from my only champion."

He was looking at her severely. He stepped close to open her door, and she was always astonished at his height when they stood so near. He tilted his head forward and he opened his mouth like he was going to say something, his eyes then flicking to her lips. She'd bet the worth of that gold trinket that he was thinking to kiss her.

"Goodnight, my lady," he said roughly, pushing open her door suddenly and standing aside, pulling himself to his full height. She didn't miss the use of her title rather than her name, and she wondered why he was so suddenly detached.

"Goodnight, Sandor," she replied, trying to keep the disappointment out of her voice, her eyes.

Sandor XXI

He'd watched the melee dispassionately, glad to be so far away from Thoros of fucking Myr's fucking flaming sword. He'd foolishly fought against the Red Priest three times in the past, and each time had gone craven in the face of that green blade. He wouldn't do it today, not in front of her.

He'd spent the morning feeling rather foolish about the night before. It was the first time they'd talked properly since the nasty business on the kingsroad. He had been less than pleased that Sansa Stark was with them, the little bird twittering behind her hand as he walked behind them. When Lenna's feet had turned toward the Tower of the Hand rather than her own room he'd felt a soft thrum of pleasure course through him. It wouldn't be long, but it was what he craved most.

He wasn't sure what had come over him standing in front of her door. The bloody antler had been worth a small fortune, but he'd wanted to give it to her, make some gesture like the poncey knights in her books did. He'd seen that before, a knight giving a lady the trophy of his victory in exchange for her favor. He wondered what she thought of it, though his cheeks burned that he should even attempt such courtly ways.

He went to the tents as soon the melee was over, shaking his head to clear it. He could not go muddy headed into the tilts. He fully intended to win. His armor needed to be tightened, having worked a bit loose over the course of the morning. The squire did as he was bid, rubbing an extra bit of polish on it. While he wasn't looking, Sandor refolded the bright blue handkerchief and replaced it near the center of his chest.

Its owner was seated in her customary place. She looked lovely in her dark blue gown, even if her hair was coiled in that complicated knot at the back of her head. It had been too long since he'd seen it down, and it figured prominently in his nighttime musings. He imagined removing the pins, one by one, until it fell about her so he could twist is about his hand like a skein of silk. He thought about it tickling across his chest, his thighs, pressed against his lips.

She had the most infuriating and intoxicating effect on him, from the her hair to her eyes to her mouth, the swell of hip and breast. He'd forgotten to inhale when those rosy lips formed around his name the night before, her lips rouged to a coral that made her look like she'd just been properly kissed, and so near he would have only needed to tip forward and he could redden them himself. He had been so close to kissing her, and he was ashamed he hadn't worked up the gumption. She had lifted her face to his in such a way that he was fairly certain she'd have welcomed it, strange and ridiculous as the very thought was.

And then there was her favor laying against his chest, given with no provocation, just handed it to him with a smile and blush. He thought he might have gone on his knees there and then, like one of her cunt knights. He certainly wanted to. But he didn't, taking the little scrap with some off-hand comment, but feeling his heart thunder in his chest as he slid it under his armor. He could feel it, almost like her hand was pressing into his breast where it lay.

The sound of a lance shattering brought him back to his surroundings. He tried to banish any thought of her. He needed a clear head to compete today. He loved a tourney, even if he had to stop short of killing. State sanctioned violence? He'd take it. Especially given the insurmountable frustration he was currently experiencing when it came to his relationship with Lenna Manderly. Anything to cut the tension. He didn't even mind that there would be many who cheered against him. Their disdain almost made him fight better. He felt, though, that there was something else riding on this day. It wasn't the promise of forty thousand gold dragons or the adulation of the crowd. He didn't need that much money, though it would buy a great deal of Dornish sour, and he certainly didn't give two shits about what people thought of him. Most people. Everyone, really, except for the woman with the near-black hair and eyes like moss.

The stands of onlookers applauded and cheered and booed and hissed with alarming volume. A great sea of undulating emotion, ebbing and flowing in reaction to knights charging and clashing and falling. He watched her as she sat idly, occasionally leaning in to say something to the princess or Ser Jaime when he wasn't preparing. She didn't notice when he slipped out of the stands to prepare for his first tilt, but he saw her stand when he guided Stranger toward the tiltyard. He was too far away to see her face before he shut his helm, but he looked for her before he did so. She was just a blur of green as he turned his face toward his opponent.

The thrill of his early victories was lessened when his brother took the field. He rode a mount as massive as his own Stranger, but Sandor was most definitely the runt of the Clegane litter. At seven feet tall, Gregor was monstrous. Truly, a mountain that rode. He watched in sober attention as he defeated half a dozen adversaries with all the effort it might take to swat an errant fly or squish a flea.

Unbelievably, the semi-final was down to the Clegane brothers, Loras Tyrell and Jaime Lannister. Sandor and Jaime faced off, and Sandor briefly considered throwing the match in the Lannister's favor. He decided not to. His reasons were twofold: He'd known Jaime since he was a boy, and he knew the Kingslayer would hold it against him. He also wanted to prove to Lenna Manderly that he was the better fighter. He didn't like the way Jaime flirted with her, and he didn't like that she enjoyed it. So, with much the same proficiency he showed in his previous tilts, he neatly defeated Ser Jaime, sending him out of his seat and sprawling through the dirt much as he had been on the banquet hall floor the night before.

Then it was his brother and Loras Tyrell. The young Knight of the Flowers, looking like he'd stepped straight out of a storybook, did the impossible. Sandor hated the sight of him since he'd handed Lenna his tourney wreath on Joffrey's nameday, but even Sandor had to bite back the yelp of triumph when his monster of a brother was unseated and knocked from his horse. There was speculation that Tyrell's animal was in heat, had distracted Gregor Clegane's mount, but nobody cared. For as little as the crowd loved Sandor, they loved his brother less.

They were all distracted by the young victor until his brother cleaved his horse's head from its body, leaving it spouting a fountain of blood as he charged Loras Tyrell.

Sandor didn't even think.

"Leave him be!"

He leapt over the railings, relishing the metallic clash of his blade against his brother's. _Perhaps today will be the day_ , he thought wildly. It went quickly, the thrusts and the parries, the grunts and the curses, but the King put a stop to it. When he took a knee, his sword's point in the dirt, he felt his brother's blade pass so near that it stirred his hair about his face.

Gregor stalked off, and he stood, still breathing hard, so exhilarated he almost smiled.

He found her at once, deathly pale, her skin and hair in such stark contrast that she looked like a doomed heroine out of one of her fairy stories. Her face was livid, her eyes wide and terrified.

His feeling of triumph wavered. He'd wanted her cheering for him, smiling at him. But there she sat with an expression of total horror, her eyes burning into his. He knew what he must look like, his chest heaving, shoulders thrown back, the thrill of fighting still fresh in his tendons. He was a brute. He hardly registered Loras ceding the tourney to him in thanks, but looked away from Lenna when the boy called him Ser and grabbed his hand, raising it in his in victory.

"I'm no Ser," he grumbled, feeling the fact keenly in a way that had never bothered him before. The crowds were cheering. For him. He was torn between enjoying it, as it had never before happened as wasn't likely to happen again, and being intensely disappointed to have lost sight of Lenna, who seemed to have disappeared.

Sandor scowled and stalked toward the tents at the earliest opportunity, uncomfortable with the sustained attention of so many people. He couldn't get the image of Lenna's terrified eyes out of his mind. His humor was black and getting darker as he made his way back, pulling his gloves off, cursing her for tarnishing the win of forty thousand gold dragons. Then he spotted her unexpectedly, standing a bit away from the tent camp beneath the fall of a willow, her forehead pressed against the trunk of the tree. His hands curled into fists at his sides and he kept walking, unable to stomach the thought of her disgust up close.

"Sandor," it was a quiet, tremulous cry, but it achieved its purpose. She sounded almost relieved, and he stopped against his will and turned. She was so pale. With a growl he allowed his feet to carry him toward her, but he refused to look at her.

"You are well? Uninjured?" The tremble in her voice pulled his gaze to her face. Her eyes were wet with tears, and she was shaking from head to toe.

"Aye," he replied gruffly. "As you see."

"Thank the Seven," she whispered, crossing her arms and hugging herself tightly. She blinked and he was astonished to see two fat tears roll down her cheeks.

"He could have killed you. You could have died," she whispered, her voice, a tiny sound, breaking on the last word. She swiped quickly at the tears, swallowing hard.

"I'd have killed him first." His voice was steely and flat.

"He almost took off your head," she protested, reaching out and grasping his elbow.

"But he didn't." Sandor looked down at her hand on his arm in confusion. He'd just won the bloody tourney. He'd have expected congratulations, but not whatever this was.

He was the tourney champion. He was standing in front of her in one piece. He saw something that might have been relief course across her face. She stood up a little straighter but continued to tremble. She was staring at him with an intensity he didn't understand. She wasn't angry, she wasn't afraid, but he could still see her shaking. He took it for disappointment, perhaps even well-concealed disgust. She'd never seen him fight before, not a real fight, and a small voice inside him wondered if she wasn't thinking again of the boy and the night in the stable. It made him inexplicably angry. Hurt. He broke his gaze to shove his hand between his breastplate and hauberk, grabbing for her handkerchief. The bright linen was rumpled, damp with his sweat, the white embroidery soiled.

"Here," he said roughly, holding it out to her.

Her expression changed to confusion and then to hurt. The word was harsh, and he spat it out like bile. She made no move to take it from him, her eyes now a brighter green. He didn't understand her wounded eyes, but he was getting frantic, desperate to get away. He grabbed her hand in exasperation and shoved the cloth into it coarsely.

He turned to leave, to stalk away, but her other hand caught his forearm, her face stricken again, eyes pleading.

"Sandor," she started, words failing. Her throat was working and he realized she was trying not to cry. "I don't want it back." She held it out to him in a trembling fist, her face raised to his with a strained expression, the skin pulled tight across her temples and cheekbones as she clenched her jaw.

He stared back, watching the tears well in her eyes again, a trickle of understanding overtaking him. Her pallor was due to fright. _For you, not of you, fool_.

She continued to hold it back out to him and he stood there dumbly. Her little fingers were wrapped tight around his sleeve, and he could feel their tremors. His eyes went from them to her other hand holding out that ridiculous handkerchief, unable to act.

"Sandor," she said softly. He still didn't move, his eyes fixating on her white hand proffering the blue linen. She took his hand in hers slowly, as if unsure of what he would do, and turned it palm upward, putting the little scrap of linen back in his palm.

He couldn't help himself and he looked at her face. He felt helpless. He stood mutely, watching in fascination as color crept back into her cheeks, her lips, intensely aware of the warmth of her hand on his. He wanted to turn his own and grasp hers, knowing how little it would feel in his. He wanted to feel the pressure of her fingers against his, to stand under this willow like the knights in her infernal story books did with their ladies. But he wasn't a knight. He wasn't honorable, or good, or handsome. He was quite the opposite. They were some perverted version of the romances, he thought darkly. She an innocent lady, and he the scurrilous brute who wanted her.

 _Who loves her_.

He was afraid that if he even exhaled the wrong way she would fly from him. But she didn't. He gently closed his fingers around the little hand still laying atop his and pressed it. His breathing had become shallower, and his attention was dedicated solely to the feeling of her hand in his and the gravity in her eyes. It would be the easiest thing in the world to just bend toward her, he thought. He wondered what she would do if he tried, his eyes flicking to her mouth for a moment.

Her lips were slightly parted, and he could see the dampness on the inside of her bottom lip. He ached to taste it. She licked her lips to wet them, and he nearly came undone.

"You would do me honor to keep it," she said quietly, her voice shaky. It broke whatever spell had been wrought between them, and his eyes returned to hers. "I'm proud that you carried my favor to such a victory."

She moved toward him hesitantly, and bit her lip lightly as if deep in thought. His head was a muddle of want and confusion, and he didn't understand what she was doing. He had just been wondering what those lips would feel like, how soft they might be against his, when she raised them toward him. She rose on her tiptoes, resting a hand against his opposite shoulder, snaking it around his neck. The other stayed in his. He stood frozen in shock, only recognizing what was happening when he felt the press of her mouth, warm and dry, on the very corner of his mouth, almost entirely on his cheek. The touch of her lips was uncertain and light, but it felt like a cataclysm rocking through him from crown to foot. He simply stopped breathing. The spot where her lips had touched his felt like it had been branded.

He was no longer capable of thought, or control, and he turned his head just a few inches, his mouth hovering over hers, their breaths mixing in a warm cloud between them. She was just a whisper away. He was breathing heavily now, the exertion from keeping himself away from her taxing him, his eyes riveted on hers even as every last inch of him was screaming out for her. It would take the slightest inclination of his head and he would be kissing her, if only he could muster the courage to do it.

To his shock, she did it for him. In a fraction of an instant, she pushed up on her toes and her mouth took his. He thought his heart had stopped, his eyes widening before slamming shut as he leaned into her. Those much thought-of lips were soft and ripe and sweet beneath his, just as he had always imagined they would be, but they were also fire, burning a searing, shaking path through him. The heat pooled thickly in his belly, his loins. It only took him an instant to take full advantage of her courage. Before he was quite sure what he was doing, he had wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her tight against him. One hand splayed possessively across the small of her back, seeking the curve of her waist and hip, fingers digging in slightly as he clutched her to him, wanting to touch all of her at once. Her free hand travelled up his still-sweaty neck, and she exhaled a breath into his mouth as her fingers buried themselves in his hair.

He couldn't subdue the groan that was torn from his chest, from his gut and groin, and in answer she made a sweet, soft sound in the back of her throat that compelled him to walk her firmly back until she rested against the smooth trunk of the tree, determined to hear it again. Her handkerchief dropped forgotten as his hand slid along her face, savoring the smoothness of her cheek beneath the calloused skin of his palm, sliding his fingers into the mass of her hair, not caring when it fell from its pins. It was warm as silk around his fingers, just as he had always thought it would be, heavy and smooth.

Her lips parted beneath his, and he thought he might die on the spot when her tongue hesitantly flicked at his lips. It was all he could do not to crush himself against her, frustrated with the barrier of his armor. More than anything, he wanted to feel her softness against him, as he had so many times in the quiet of the library, on that bloody ship to White Harbor. This time, he wanted to feel her breasts heaving against him, her hips tilted toward him. There was nothing innocent or childlike about what they were doing, and he wanted to feel her, all of her, to make sure this was actually happening and not just some delusion his degenerate brain had concocted.

She was so eager it made him dizzy, the blood rushing down from his head in a southerly direction as her lips moved tentatively under his. Fuck, but she was inquisitive, her hands in his hair and finding any other part of his skin she could. She flicked the tip of her tongue against his lips again and he _growled_ , each little experiment on her part making him hungrier and hungrier, desperate to keep her lips beneath his.

He opened his eyes to watch her face only to find her looking back at him, measuring his response just as he wished to measure hers. The moment they looked at one another was just long enough for them to both realize what they were doing. They parted quickly, but he didn't move his hands, one buried in her hair as it tumbled down from its pins, the other ranging her side in firm circles. Her own arms were still twined around his neck, and Lenna lowered her eyes, a deep flush spreading across her cheeks, her lips bruised and parted. She'd never been lovelier. _You did that, you made her look like that_ , he thought lustfully. He drank in every last detail, the shadow of her eyelashes on her cheek, the flutter of her pulse against his thumb where it absently stroked her throat, the dark, curling lock of hair that had fallen down to lay on her breast. He relaxed his hold on her, but he didn't pull away, waiting in agony to see what she would do, what she would say.

"I must return before I'm missed," she whispered roughly, looking up at him from under her lashes, pulling away from him slowly. Her eyes were shining and he wondered at the expression on her face, half shyness and half awe, her eyes almost black. He figured he looked about the same.

He nodded, still not able to look away from her or to speak, his mouth burning and his breathing labored.

She smiled uncertainly, bashfully, then squeezed his hand and released it. He let it go with resignation, watching as she retreated with a longing in his veins that was more powerful than anything he had ever felt before. He turned, wiping a hand across his face, touching his mouth with his fingertips in disbelief.

She only made it a handful of steps before he heard her turn back to him. He met her halfway, reaching out and bringing her flush against him, his hands on her hips, his mouth finding hers again. There was nothing tentative in this kiss, it was hard and bruising. _Eight years_ , he thought, _I've waited eight fucking years_. His hands cradled her face, fingertips running across her cheekbones, down the line over her throat, over her shoulders. She tried to pull back, but he held her to him as he kissed her more deeply, a thrill of energy coursing deeply through him when she parted his lips for him, her tongue drawing shyly against his in a way that made him exhale sharply, and she moaned deep in her throat. _Gods, that's the sweetest sound_. He softened his onslaught, surprised when she laughed into his mouth, and he swallowed the joyful sound greedily, until finally she put both palms flat against his tabard and gently pushed him away.

He kept his eyes closed, wary of her anger or her shame, afraid of facing the reality of what they'd done. _No going back, not after that._

"Sandor," she said softly, and he made himself open his eyes. His stomach fell into his boots to see her smiling up at him, her mouth swollen and eyes still bright. Her hand came up and traced his cheek, another tingle of heat flaring in him as he leaned into it. "I'll see you at the banquet."

She rose on her tiptoes to plant one last chaste kiss on his mouth, and then she walked quickly away, her hands busy trying to repair the damage he'd done to her hair. The sight of her so disheveled made his groin throb.

He watched her go with a strange, ebullient sensation in his chest. _Joy_. It wasn't something he felt very often, and he almost didn't recognize it, but he could still feel the press of her mouth, the pressure of her fingers, and an odd effervescence was bubbling through his chest. He could feel himself smiling, not a smirk but a fucking grin. He spotted her handkerchief and picked it up. He stood beneath the tree for a time, that little scrap of linen clenched in his hand as he pressed his forehead to the bark of the willow, waiting for his breathing to slow and the grin to subside. It took him long minutes to pull himself together, until at last, after long deliberation, he settled her handkerchief once again against his chest, this time on the left.

A/N: Are y'all as relieved as I am? Oy. Hope that carrot was a good enough reward!

Please review! Every time I get a notification, it's like a little mini-Christmas morning. I love hearing what you have to say, and I can't tell you just how much y'all have influenced this piece so far. You leave the very best, most detailed and thoughtful comments a girl could as for. Keep 'em coming, and I'll do my best to do the same.

I will be slowing down a smidge. I was careening to get them to this place, but I just can't chug out 5k-8k words every three days! Goal is once a week! Hope that suits!


	24. Chapter 24

Lenna XXIV

It happened so quickly. One moment the crowd was cheering for Ser Loras, the they were screaming in horror.

The Mountain had taken his longsword and cleaved his horse's head clean off, a tremendous geyser of blood spewing from the poor creature's neck, pooling thickly on the tourney grounds. The crowd was transfixed by this hideous sight and didn't even see the Mountain advance on young Loras with his bloodied broadsword until a harsh voice bellowed over the din of the crowd.

"Leave him be!"

She swivelled in her seat, just fast enough to see Sandor charge down from the royal platform and neatly leap over the railing. He was nimble for a man his size, and once his boots hit the dirt his own great longsword was unsheathed and ready. The two brothers began a slow orbit, shoulders hunched and teeth bared like dogs in a fighting pit.

Despite Sandor's impressive size, his brother was easily six inches taller and ten stone heavier. She didn't catch who moved first. Steel met steel with an awful, scraping clash. The tourney ground had become absolutely silent save for the clang of swords and the grunts of effort from the two men. Time seemed to move more slowly as they parried, thrust, and hacked, but none of the Mountain's attempts landed true. Sandor had nicked his brother in the arm, which further enraged him, the blows growing swifter, more erratic.

"Enough!" road the King. The effect was instantaneous. Sandor took a knee, the point of his sword buried in the dirt, head bowed. The timing was crucial. The Mountain's blade missed him by an inch, the force of the swing stirring his long hair around his face as it passed just over the crown of his head. Lenna pressed a hand over her mouth to prevent the shriek that threatened to escape her throat.

Sandor stood and sheathed his sword, catching her eye. His eyes found hers and held them like flames, tension through his neck, his color high, but with an unmistakable glint of triumph. He was alive with it.

Ser Loras Tyrell, who was to have tilted against him in the final, ceded the tournament right there on the ground.

"I owe you my life, ser," he said, his handsome face still pale with terror.

"I'm no ser," Sandor ground out as the boy seized his wrist and held it aloft. The crowd cheered for Sandor Clegane, but Lenna found her throat stopped, unable to make a sound, arrested by his steady gaze and the expression of hurt and confusion on his face.

Lenna fled as soon as he looked away from her, feeling like someone had cut her free from irons. She was almost certain she was going to be sick. She made it off the stand and walked toward the tents as quickly as she could, her hands clenched by her sides and her legs trembling. There was a buzzing in her ears when she stopped at the base of a willow tree near where the men prepared. She pressed her forehead against the bark, clinging to the feeling of the rough surface against her skin as she took deep, shuddering gulps of air. Her mind continued to race, and she saw the Mountain's sword pass over Sandor's head by just the space of a breath over and over again. She was seized with visions of what could have happened if his swipe had struck true, the idea that Sandor could have been killed causing her stomach to knot in painful nausea.

It was the first time Lenna had seen him actually fight, and it frightened her. For years she had discounted his enormous size, the powerful set of his shoulders and the sword that always hung on his hip. She'd heard him say that killing was the sweetest thing, but she had thought he was being grandiose or trying to scare her. Watching him as he slung that blade through the air with fervor, she'd believed him. There wasn't a second of it he didn't enjoy, even with the stakes as high as they were, and the thought made her shake. Long acquaintance had made her forget that first and foremost, Sandor Clegane was a contract killer, though he made no attempt at pretending otherwise. His sole duty was to physically protect the royal family, by whatever means necessary. He had killed a boy, no more than ten years old, and while he raged over it, he had done it all the same.

While she knew this, she was also certain that he would never harm her, and not just because he'd sworn an oath. No, she wasn't trembling because she was afraid of him, but because she was afraid _for_ him. She had been frozen with fear that he would come to harm. He was clearly matched by his brother, and potentially at the disadvantage. There was bloodlust in the Mountain's face as he looked at his little brother, and Lenna couldn't help but feel this confrontation was a long time in coming, almost predestined. Every swing of the Mountain's sword made her gasp, and she'd watched raptly though for far different reasons than the rest of the crowd. She felt as though her heart had climbed into her throat and sat there stuttering: beating with relief when Sandor blocked or landed a blow, stopping again in terror when he stumbled. She found it difficult to get a breath, taking in air with little hitching gasps that made her feel light-headed.

When the king finally put an end to it she thought she might fall to her knees in relief. She went completely still despite the seething mass of spectators all around her, her hand still clamped over her mouth. Her chest had collapsed once her mind registered that the danger had passed, but she found it almost impossible to refill her lungs. In a haze, she realized she was sobbing though no tears dropped from her eyes.

Now they came like a fountain, pouring down her cheeks and dripping off her nose as her breath came in little sobbing hitches. She tried to be quiet, pressing her hand so hard against her mouth that her fingers turned white. She stood there for what felt like an eternity, forcing herself to listen to the whisper of the tree's long, wispy branches in the wind. It was a soothing sound, and it lulled her into calm.

Then there came a harsh clomping of boots and she looked up to see him plodding back toward the pavillions. He had taken off his gauntlets and held them in one hand, and his helm must still be back in the royal box.

She had never been more glad to see anyone in her life.

"Sandor!" she cried, and she was ashamed that it sounded so weak in her own ears. He stopped abruptly, turning to her with the darkest scowl she'd ever seen on his face.

He seemed so angry, his face hard when he finally looked at her. She couldn't fathom what she had done wrong to inspire that amount of rage.

"You are well? Uninjured?" She scanned him from top to bottom, but there wasn't a mark on him. He was sweating and still breathing hard, but he was unhurt.

"Aye, as you see."

"Thank the Seven," she replied, hugging herself. She suddenly felt violently cold, relief flooding her and setting her nerves to shaking. She felt small, like a child, fear still bubbling quick in her stomach. "He could have killed you. You could have died."

It was her worst fear. Worse than never going home again was the thought of Sandor Clegane bleeding and dying in front of her eyes. She couldn't keep the tears at bay, wiping at them hastily when they escaped. She knew he didn't care for tears, as many of hers as he'd comforted.

"I'd have killed him first."

She wanted to believe it. "He almost took off your head." Even with her eyes open, she could still see the blade of his brother's sword pass over the crown of his head, the force of the swing sending his hair to fluttering gently, as if in a summer breeze. It was the eeriest thing to see.

"But he didn't."

Practical, realistic Sandor. He was right. Gregor Clegane had not cleaved his head from his shoulders, and he was standing before her a tourney champion. She felt the crash of remorse overtake the panic, seeing hurt in his face. _He thinks you're disgusted by him_ , she thought with sudden clarity.

He reached into his armor and produced her handkerchief.

"Here," he said, holding it out to her. Lenna fought the urge to cry in earnest. She was making a muck of things if he thought she wanted her favor back. She didn't. She wanted him to carry it, this little piece of her, always. She shook her head, but he was already reaching for her hand and shoving the fabric into it. It was damp with sweat, the embroidery soiled from where it had ridden against him the past two days. Without another look or word, he turned to stalk away.

"Sandor," she cried, his name ripped from her. She still looked down at the fabric in her hand. "I don't want it back."

She held it back out to him, but he didn't move to take it. She took a deep breath and approached him like she would a snarling dog, like he might strike out. He didn't resist when she took his hand, pressing it back into his palm where it belonged. He looked at her with a ferocity she couldn't interpret.

"You would do me honor to keep it," she said, a poor imitation of the ladies in the romances. She didn't feel like one of them, she felt wretched and raw. Had they almost vomited from worry that their lovers would come to harm, too? Did they have visions of their knights' bodies laid out on a tourney ground, their blood a scarlet puddle beneath them? "I'm proud that you carried my favor to such a victory."

He didn't move or speak. He wouldn't, and she knew that it wasn't something he could do. For all he spat on honor, he wouldn't ever move to her first. He'd proven that time and time again. She would have to do it, just as she had before, and now was better than never. After all, the ladies in the romances always gave their knights a boon when they were victorious. A trinket, or a love-note. Or a kiss.

With more courage than she felt, she raised on tiptoes and tentatively pressed her mouth to his cheek, just grazing the corner of his mouth. The warmth of him comforted her, proving that he was still alive, still standing in front of her. He remained stiff, but then he tilted his head just slightly. She could feel the warmth of his exhalations against her lips and cheeks, forceful little gusts keeping rhythm with the beating of his heart. Their mouths were so close together all she would have to do was tip her chin upward. Closing her eyes, she did, consequences be damned.

She had no idea that it would be like that. No idea that she would be able to feel it all the way down in the darkest parts of her. If she had known, she would have done it sooner, and not waited eight bloody years. He wrapped his arm around her like iron, pressed her against the rough bark of the tree, his hands demanding on her back and in her hair. He pressed his palm along her side, brushing the underside of her breast and making her heart stutter. No one had ever touched her that way before, and it made her weak, her legs shaking so violently she was grateful to him for how he was crushing her, annoyed that she was pressed against his armor and not his body.

He groaned and growled, and the sounds made something feral in her wake, her hips pushing up against him in search of she knew not what. She'd opened her eyes to look at him, the intense expression on his face not at all unlike the one he'd worn earlier in the heat of his battle with his brother. He was ferocious and fierce and gods, she didn't have words for what she wanted from him.

She knew what women did with men, she was no innocent child. She'd only ever heard it discussed as some sort of unpleasant duty, but if it felt anything like his kiss did she wouldn't have objected if he'd done it right there against that tree. From the expression on his face, he wanted to. Badly. While there was an immense amount of fervor in his actions, there was also an incredible amount of control. She felt it in the tension of his arms, the deliberate nature of his touch. He was holding himself in check even as he ravaged her mouth.

She didn't want to pull away from him, but she knew she had to. After wanting it, wanting him, for so long, the last thing she wanted was to leave, to go pretend that something monumental hadn't just happened between them. She tried to leave, but she faltered, and in her giddiness, she went straight back into his arms, gratified when he grabbed her by the hips and pinned her against him without any hesitation, his lips seeking hers. It had not been chaste or gentle, and she loved it.

 _She loved him._

He had looked just as dazed as she felt, a spot of color in his cheek, his eyes full of something she'd never seen before, akin to wonder or awe. _Worship and lust._ Again she ripped herself away, afraid someone might be sent looking for her. It had taken all of her mettle to press one last kiss against that scarred mouth and walk away, assuring herself it wouldn't be the last.

She stumbled back toward the crowd, her legs quivering, barely able to carry her as she tried to repair the damage done to her hair. She was sure she had lost a few pins, but by the time she made it back to the box, she was sure she was presentable.

She walked back hurriedly after seeing Myrcella tucked into the queen's litter. As soon as she reached the keep, she went in search of a maid to have her hair repaired, now noticing that the ribbon had worked itself out under his hands and was trailing down her neck. While she was aware that no one could possibly know what had put the flush in her cheek, what had mussed her hair, she felt absolutely brazen, like everyone would know what she had been doing with Sandor Clegane under that tree.

Now she looked at herself in the mirror and wondered if she was insane. She had put on the red dress, and the maid was in the process of winding the crimson ribbon into her braid. As the girl worked, Lenna dabbed on cream, rouge, even hesitantly swiping on a smudge of kohl. Her eyes were bright, and she felt like she had a new self-awareness, like her skin was suddenly sentient and alert.

She made her way to the queen's chambers in search of the princess. She assumed that she would be seated with Myrcella at the feast again. She hoped she'd be able to see him easily. It made her smile with pleasure to know that, as tourney champion, he would be seated with the rest of revelers instead of being forced to guard. She imagined him in his jerkin and tunic, plain by appropriate, sitting at the long table of competitors as they feasted and toasted. He'd probably hate it.

But they didn't go to the feast. Cersei was in the foulest temper Lenna had ever seen, prowling around her chambers like a caged lion. Jaime Lannister had thrown himself across a chair, a goblet dangling from his own hand, but he was taciturn, his face stormy. Cersei tossed back more goblets of Arbor sweetwine than Lenna could keep track of, all the while darling little Myrcella and Tommen just sat and picked at the dinner that had been put in front of them.

"I want to go to the banquet," the princess pouted, pushing her food around on her plate.

"Sweetling, you were up far too late last night. It wouldn't do to stay up so long again. Eat your dinner," Cersei said with ill-disguised rancor.

"But I wanted to see Sandor-" The child had the good sense to be quiet as soon as she saw her mother's face.

Lenna sat quietly, her hands in her lap. She wanted to see Sandor, too. It took all of her resolve not to ask to be excused. She knew to do so would be a mistake, especially with Cersei in such a humor. She wondered if the queen had lost another tidy sum on the tourney, if that was the source of her anger. It must have been a great deal of money judging by her behavior. The room was disturbingly quiet, the only sound that of Cersei's roving feet.

"Lady Helenna," she said at last, stopping by the window. "Will you not give us a song?"

Lenna was startled. Of all the times she'd be expected to sing, this was not one of them

"What would you have, your grace?'

"I believe I'd like to hear _Castamere_ ," she said lowly, slowly pivoting and looking pointedly at her twin.

Lenna cleared her throat and did as she was bid.

Myrcella and Tommen were taken to bed shortly after, and Lenna rose to go after them only for Cersei to stop her.

"Take a glass with us, Lady Helenna," Cersei said, pouring a measure of wine into a goblet. Jaime looked at her with a flicker of apology in his eyes, his face still dark as a thundercloud. She took the glass and sipped slowly, the first of too many, consumed in a tense silence. She did not understand why she should have to endure it.

When she finally was given leave to go to bed it was well past midnight. The Keep was absolutely still, but Lenna had a mad hope that maybe, just maybe, he'd have gone to the library, knowing it was her haunt. When she slipped through the doors, her heart leaped to her throat to see lamplight glowing from the back of the room.

She nearly ran, wheeling around the corner to see the lamp sitting on the table, but no Sandor in sight. In the dim glow, she could make out an object, and the sight of it made her heart feel like it was fighting to escape the cage of her ribs and take flight.

A wreath of red roses, the victor's crown.

Sandor XXIV

She didn't come to the feast. As soon as he noted the queen's absence, as well as that of Myrcella and Tommen, he knew why. Cersei kept her close to Myrcella, and if the princess didn't come, neither would she. It did not blunt the stab of disappointment. He'd taken care with his appearance, donning the best set of clothes he had. He'd even washed his hair, spending most of the interim between the tourney and the banquet mooning around the barracks. No matter what he did, he could think of nothing but kissing her. It consumed every inhalation.

He even went to the library after, that crown of roses in his hands. So little to offer, but he knew that it would speak for him far more eloquently than anything he could say. He didn't have a way with words, and he shuddered at the thought of trying to tell her, of trying to talk to her.

And she hadn't been there, nor had she come in the hour he waited. He'd left it there sadly, letting the lamp burn down, just in case, and returned to his room, forty thousand dragons richer but lower in spirits than he had been in quite some time.

He was prone to melancholy and anger, but that day had vacillated violent between despondence and elation. From the glorious rush of crossing swords with his brother to the sweet sounds from her throat while his mouth was on hers, he couldn't recall a better day in his entire life, only for it to be tarnished by her absence at dinner, the loss of a chance for them to speak.

 _What would you say?_ Nothing. He knew that he'd be able to say nothing. He wasn't a Lannister with their pretty speeches and soft, sibilant voices. But he could show her. He'd thought about it all afternoon, what it might be like to wrap his arms around her without his bloody armor, to hold her against him and use what skills he had to show her how she made him feel, had always made him feel.

He'd thought about that quite a lot since the business with the butcher's boy. There'd been something between them from the moment she smiled at him in the queen's solar, a maid of fifteen. He'd been harder then, twenty and full of spleen and violence. Not so far apart in age, really, but so very different. The contrast wasn't lost on him, and he had no idea how a woman like that could ever have grown to care for the likes of him, but he knew she had. Perhaps she'd come to it slower than he had, but she had all the same. It made him a little bit proud to think that'd he'd loved her first, that he'd loved her longest. By the time she was seventeen he'd been long gone with love. It had started before he knew what to call it. He'd always thought of it as simple lust, but he was deep in the middle of something else before he was completely aware that he'd begun. She was a pretty young woman, and he was a young man with more than his share of urges. Urges that he'd habitually sated in the brothels of Flea Bottom, or with tavern wenches in dark alleys for a few pieces of coin. Rutting. Painless and without responsibility. He had never been a lover, wasn't accustomed to giving or receiving soft touches and gentle words. But with her, the urges came with a heftier price than gold. They cost him his piece of mind, longing slicing through him at every turn, with every word and glance. Such pain amid the pleasure, and he relished it. He should have known that since it hurt, it was something much more serious than mere lust.

He didn't drink that night, at least not much. Four or five tankards, not even enough to make him pleasantly tipsy. By the time he'd gone back to his bunk, he was fully sober, falling into bed in a mass of disappointed hope, not even bothering to shuck off his tunic and trousers. Feeling like a lovesick squire, he seized the handkerchief from his table and thrust it under his pillow, not a bit ashamed to fall asleep with a finger on her embroidery. It was his to do with as he wished, damn it.

The next morning, he rose at the regular time, a squire coming to fasten his armor. He wished he had a glass, but he'd long ago thrown it away. He knew what he looked like, he didn't need a mirror to remind him. Before he left his room, he retrieved the handkerchief and refolded it, tucking it back into his armor on the left side. He might have felt foolish if it didn't make him feel powerful. But it did, knowing that her favor, a token of whatever care she felt for him, was resting on his chest was enough to make him stand a little straighter. It was his, and hers. Theirs.

She was seated on the floor of Cersei's solar when he came in, flanked on either side by the princess and the elder Stark girl. She looked up, and he forced himself to meet her eye. Cersei wasn't paying attention to them, but he didn't smile back when she beamed at him briefly, a flush of pink splashing across her cheeks like a dawn breaking. He hoped she knew him well enough to see how pleased he was to see her.

"Oh, Hound," Cersei said, glancing in his direction. "Congratulations are in order, I believe."

Her tone was icy and he wondered if he hadn't made a mistake by throwing Ser Jaime.

"Thank you, your grace."

"Quite a heroic showing, especially the end. You've received your prize?"

"Yes, your grace," he replied, thinking of the chest full of money locked in his room. He had no idea what to do with it.

"Prince Joffrey wishes to bestow another on you," she said softly. "He was so impressed that he quite begged me for you."

"Your grace?" His hackles rose at the insinuation that he was a thing to be granted at the prince's request.

"He's growing, and in need of a personal guard. He has requested you for the office."

Sandor felt his pleasure flee. He forced himself not to look at Lenna, instead looking back at the queen and nodding his head.

"Yes, your grace," he replied, his chest cracking. With that, their mornings were over. No more standing in the shadows and watching her with the princess, no more shared glances over the child's head. Just like that.

"He's with his father in the yards. You may go."

He bowed again, balling his hands into fists, feeling his shoulder creep up toward his ears as he wheeled around and walked out of the solar, keenly aware of her eyes on his back as he went.

The boy was a cunt. It was a frustrating morning for more reasons than he could count. When midday finally came he was dismissed, and instead of finding his way to the mess, his feet turned him toward the Sept. He had to see her.

It had been weeks, if not months, since he'd stepped foot inside. There had been no opportunity, so much of their time dedicated to preparing for the damn tourney once they'd returned from their travels. He hadn't watched her as she lighted her candles for some time. The prospect made him feel calmer, some of the tension releasing from his shoulders. It would give him time to rally his courage, to think on what he might say.

Now, as he took in the arrangements of tapers around the Sept, he was confused. In the past there had always been two, one for the royal family and one for House Manderly. How many times had he heard her repeat those prayers? If he'd believed in the gods, he would surely have thought no harm could ever befall them based solely on the faithfulness of her prayers.

But now there were three.

She was lighting the final trio at the feet of the Mother, dressed in sober blue with his red ribbon in her hair. He fought the urge to come up behind her and place his lips against the white curve where her shoulder met her neck.

"Gentle Mother, watch over the royal family, especially the children who are so dear to you. Keep House Manderly in your grace, and may we continue to serve the Faith as our forebears have. And look with kindness on Sandor Clegane, and continue keep him safe from every harm. All my thanks for keeping him safe during the tourney and bringing him to victory."

A sudden lump rose like a stone in his throat as he glance around, noting the clusters of three at the foot of every statue, the Stranger included. He wondered at it, remembering that night in the stables when she had said she'd pray for him. He'd taken it as an empty offer, so many people said it, but he should have known better. Lenna Manderly did what she said she was going to do. If she said she'd pray for him, then she would.

It wasn't the prayers that mattered to him. He thought prayers were worth fuckall. Words that died like wind, heard by nothing but the air. No, it wasn't the prayers that moved him. It was the sight of Lenna Manderly on her knees in supplication on his behalf that made his chest tighten and his breath come faster.

"Lenna," he said, clearing his throat. He watched as her spine stiffened and her shoulders went back. With deliberate grace she rose to her feet and turned to face him. Her little hands were loosely hanging by her sides, but he saw her surreptitiously wipe them against her skirts.

 _Seven hells, she's nervous_ , he thought wildly, taking in the flushed cheek and the downcast eyes.

"Can we...can we talk?" he asked lamely. She nodded, flicking her eyes up at him through her lashes as she passed. She didn't mean it to be flirtatious, but he could have seized her right then and there in the sight of the Seven.

He followed as she led him into one of the alcoves, near the one they'd met in years before. Perhaps it was the same one, he didn't know. He just knew he wanted to kiss her, just like he had then. It was the only thing he could think of, all other thought had fled.

She had brought her hands together, wringing them slightly as she continued to look at the floor, at her feet, at his chest. _Look at me_ , he thought desperately.

"I'm sorry I was not at the banquet, the queen-" Her speech was rushed, like she was afraid he wouldn't believe her, that furrow appearing between her brows. He wanted to kiss it, just as he always did, and he wondered what she might do if he did.

"I figured that out," he replied, putting his hand on her elbow, running it down her forearm until her hand was in his. She blushed deeply, her fingers curling in his, and his blood rose. Of its own volition, his other hand rose to her shoulder, then her neck, until he was cradling her jaw and tipping her face up so he could see her. She smiled uncertainly up at him.

"I didn't want you to think I...thank you for the roses." If she kept smiling at him like that, all maidenly shyness, he didn't know what he would do. It was already a struggle not to draw her into him.

"They belong to you." It was true. As soon as the bloody things had been presented to him, he had thought of nothing else but giving them to her. Like Loras Tyrell, but in this case, if would mean something, not some trinket given to just any beautiful woman. He had imagined it as he waited in the library. He would have asked her to take down her hair, and he'd have placed that crown on her head and kissed her like the damn knight she persisted in thinking he was. _A foolish dream_ , he thought, but he'd been disappointed all the same.

Her smile gained confidence, still a little, hopeful thing, and he felt himself return it in his fashion.

"You know, I even wore my red last night. With your ribbon."

"Did you?" he asked stupidly. The vision of her in that dress with his roses in her hair made his mouth go dry and all thought vanish. He'd thought of nothing but standing with her since the moment she'd left him the day before, and now here they were and he could think of nothing to say. All he could think of was her eyes lifted to his and her hand pressed against his palm, warm and slight.

"It would have been...fitting, I suppose." She looked away and tried to laugh, but it was an airy thing.

They were both nervous. Never in the past had they been so timid around each other. Silent, yes, but never hesitant. Something new was being wrought between them, though. Something untested, still fresh and growing. Fragile and powerful.

Fuck it, he didn't have words. He wished he had fucking words.

He slid his palm along her cheek, gratified beyond telling when she closed her eyes and leaned into the rough surface of his hand. The thought had occurred to him that she might regret what had passed between them, have thought better of it, but seeing her dark lashes flutter against her cheek as she leaned her face against his hand with her lips parted alleviated that fear in the most delightful way. She wanted him to touch her, she wanted to be standing there with him in that shadowed alcove, like two lovers.

 _That's what you fucking are, you cunt_.

"I don't know-" he started, tongue-tied and clumsy as he tried to find a way to say what he was feeling. There were no words that he knew that could do the job.

"You don't have to say a word, Sandor," she whispered, putting her hand over his, lifting her face up to him. He felt his lip twitch, his eyes on hers as he bent his head.

It was the first time he'd kissed her, really. She'd kissed him the day before, ladylike Helenna Manderly boldly on her tiptoes. This time, he'd closed the distance, and it was different. He could feel it in his bones. There was no desperation in it, no need for courage. It was slow, and sweet, and warm. Familiar, almost, and delicate. It was saying something new, something much more potent than the frantic caresses of the day before. That had been a declaration, all bravado and violence. This was a promise, all of the feeling he'd long carried pouring out of his chest and into her, eight years of longing and fervor. To his amazement, he felt it returned in equal measure, her little hand splayed against his cheek, running along his beard. It had a richness to it that made him want to weep. He seemed to be doing quite a lot of that these days.

She looked up at him gravely when he pulled away, her eyes like moons reflecting back at him.

"What are we going to do?" she asked softly. He ran his fingers across her brow, pushing his fingertips into the wave of her hair.

"I don't know," he replied plainly. He had no idea, he hadn't gotten that far in his thinking. He'd only been able to think of holding her again. There where, when, and how he hadn't quite worked out yet.

"You can't leave me again," she said urgently. "They reassigned you, but you can't."

"I won't." Gods, but it felt like an oath.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him soundly, and this one felt more like a contract, a seal, than a gesture of passion. She laid her head on his armor, and he allowed himself to turn his face into her hair, to bring his hand up so he cradled her against him, and he pressed his mouth into the crown of her head. He couldn't count how many times he'd thought of doing just that, prevented by his own sense of unworthiness, of the impossibility of her wanting him as anything other than a friend. A friend would kiss him, wouldn't press her body against him as wantonly as she did, and that made his lip curl.

When she lifted her head again and her mouth found his, he was left in no doubt that whatever it was Lenna Manderly bore him, it was far from chaste friendship. He knew he shouldn't do such a thing to a lady, but he couldn't help himself. She was a tall woman, but he had to stoop to kiss her. Wrapping his arms around her, he lifted her up until their faces were level and pressed her against the wall. His hands weren't free to touch her as he wanted, but hers were, travelling over his face and neck as they had the day before. Then her mouth was on his brow and on his cheek and his chin.

Then it was on the scars.

He froze, and she must have felt it because she pulled her face away from his, still cradling his cheek in her little hand.

"Does it hurt?"

"No," he responded bluntly. It didn't hurt, not in the way she meant. It hurt within, her lips on it reminding him of what and who he was. Guilt was threatening to slay his pleasure, guilt and that terribly sense of unworthiness. He had forgotten he was the ugly Hound while her hand was in his and her eyes were lifted to him with that sweet expression in them. When she touched it, reality came crashing back, the little voice whispering its venomous lies. _Not for you...couldn't want you...laughing at you._

"Sandor," she said quietly, her eyes on his. He took a deep breath and looked back at her, using her gaze to still his mind. "It is part of you, and I want you. But I won't touch it if it bothers you so much." His chest felt like it had been cleaved open, light and blood leaking out into the darkness. _She wants you_.

He swallowed thickly. "S'alright."

"You're sure?"

He nodded, and closed his eyes when she traced her fingertips over it, followed by her lips. She left none of it untouched, from his face to his scalp to the long line down his neck. He could barely feel it, but by the time she pulled back from him, resting her forehead against his, he knew his cheeks were wet. It didn't shame him, her seeing him cry, if anything it bound him more forcefully to her. Even though the skin was deadened, immalleable, her ministrations had soothed him.

"I love you, Sandor Clegane," she whispered, her eyes intense upon his. "All of you."

He thought he might erupt from his armor at those words, waves of disbelief and terror came crashing over him with enough force that he almost pushed her away. They were then brutally slain by a triumphant joy that slammed up from his gut and against his ribs, his heart thundering. _Loves you..loves **you**._ It took every last ounce of strength and verve to hold her gaze, not even aware when the words were ripped from his throat.

"And I...you."

A/N: Eh, so I had some unexpected extra time. I'll be travelling for the next little bit, not sure when the next chapter will be posted. Still on the sooner side, just getting polished. I work a few chapters out and tweak as they need to be posted.

Once again, thank you all for the kind words. I love reading them, and they make me want to work. I am so glad the last chapter made you all as happy as it made me. I may be pushing the rating a smidge as we move forward, just forewarning. I hope that's alright with everyone, I certainly don't want to offend. If I need to change it, I will.

Review! Pretty please? Yep, have resorted to begging. You're where I get my best ideas!


	25. Chapter 25

Lenna XXV

She looked forward to his unexpected appearances in the Sept. The upset in their routine was disheartening, but at least she was confident that he was as unhappy as she was about the arrangement. His new detail meant he was with Joffrey more or less all day, every day, except for when he was eating or training. She missed seeing him for Myrcella's lessons, and the princess voiced the same. The latter earned her an oddly arched eyebrow from her mother, but no further comment. Lenna wished she could squeeze the girl and tell her she felt the same.

She found herself distracted, wondering when she might see him again. It was never something she could predict. When he did make it to the Sept, he would sneak away for a handful of minutes here or there before or after his midday meal, or before he went to the yards. She wondered how many times she had missed him, pulled back to her own duties after reluctantly leaving her candles at the feet of the Seven, wondering if he saw that she lit three now instead of her previous two. Always she prayed for her Manderlys and the royal family, but since the incident on the Kingsroad, she had spent most of her prayers on Sandor Clegane's health and redemption. She wondered if he'd be cross to know that she went on her knees in supplication on his behalf. Something in her said that no, he'd be moved by such a display.

When he did come, he was never able to stay for long, always due somewhere or other at Joffrey's bidding. He'd slip in through a side door without her ever hearing him. He knew her routine so well that when she went to unenthusiastically went to leave he never failed to unnerve her. She'd long noted that for such a large man he was sure-footed and silent as a deer, and she never once heard his footfalls. The Sept was always quiet as a tomb, and he'd taken to playing a game in which he'd hide in an alcove and wait for her to make her way towards the door. He'd grab her around the waist and haul her against him, pushing her up against the wall as he chuckled into her gasping mouth. She might slap at his breastplate half-heartedly, but she didn't resist for long. The fright quickly changed into something much more pleasant, and she lived in anticipation of it. He'd even done it once or twice in the passageways of the Red Keep, throwing a hand across her lips to muffle her shriek of surprise, a playful glint in his eye that made her burn. Then they'd have a minute or two of frantic fumbling and fevered whispering before he nudged her back on her way feeling thoroughly disheveled and wanton, a grin that was almost a leer spread across his face from the shadows.

She wanted to be cross with him for being so busy, but she was no better. At the queen's behest, she now spent the majority of her day attending to the princess, her afternoons of quiet study suspended in the wake of the added duty. Her new orders had come hot on the heels of Sandor's transfer to Joffrey, that morning leaving Lenna's head in more of a whirl than it already was. To add to it, Sansa Stark had begun attending Myrcella as well. Cersei had decided it would befit the future queen of the Seven Kingdoms to get to know her sister-in-law, a princess born to the role.

The introduction of the Stark girl gave Lenna a new perspective of her princess. Myrcella was naturally kind, and it was clear to Lenna that she was thrilled to have a friend close to her own age. Sansa took to the princess as well. They were similar in their ways, both well-mannered and gentle by temper, but in contrast to Sansa Stark, Myrcella possessed a confidence and a poise that Lenna had not noticed. She was growing up to be a proper princess, conscientious and graceful, sound in her judgement for such a young girl, her very bearing speaking of responsibility and duty.

For all Sansa tried, it was much more difficult for her. She reminded Lenna so much of herself at that age, uncertain and naive as she attempted to understand the unspoken rules of her new lot, and Lenna tried to be of as much assistance as she could. The girl often did not recognize her advice for what is was, being so used to artlessness, of being the most important lady in the room. It was clear to Lenna that Sansa hadn't quite realized her role in King's Landing, or how to use it. Not surprising, the child was only thirteen, but there were moments when Lenna wanted to shake her. But, despite Sansa's streak of adolescent selfishness, of that guilelessness that bordered on gullibility, Lenna's affection for her grew each day. She so wanted to please, and Lenna so wished for her to be successful where she had not.

"You were right," Lenna had said one evening, her back propped against Sandor's chest. It was a more recent developing, his visits in the library after day. He'd only been coming for about a month, and she had chastised herself for not thinking of it sooner. He'd begun appearing in the library after dinner, especially on nights when he hadn't been able to steal into the Sept to see her. It delighted her that he wanted to see her so badly, as much as she wanted to see him. It afforded them a privacy the Sept hadn't as well, as well as leisure instead of frenzy. They spent much of their time together sitting with Lenna nestled against him, his fingers caught up in hers, reading or talking. He didn't say much, he wasn't suddenly effusive, but his hands said what his tongue didn't. He could not abide lack of contact, his hands constantly on her in some way, keen for her.

"Hmm?" he murmured, drowsing against her, his cheek on her head, their hands twined together in her lap as she used the other to turn the pages of the book they were reading. Well, that she was reading. He seemed much wearier since he'd started following the prince, and it wasn't uncommon for him to doze off. Nor did she mind it. It felt strangely intimate knowing he was asleep wrapped around her, his breathing even behind her back, against her hair. He was on duty longer, sure, but she suspected that was only part of the problem. He said little about Joffrey, but she surmised from what he let on that the boy was just as exhausting as she feared. It must be hell for him to keep his mouth shut around that attitude all day long. She smiled at the thought of his quips and turned into him, brushing her lips against his neck. He stirred, leaning his head down toward hers.

"Your little bird. She's having a hard time."

She thought about the girl almost constantly, concerned with what she was seeing. Though pretty and pleasing, Sansa was struggling with the way of life in the Keep. It was one thing to be courtly and well-mannered, and something completely different to understand the machinations of court. She didn't know that she wasn't supposed to speak her mind, that it was better to listen than it was to talk. Innocent mistakes, but Lenna feared Cersei was beginning to think her a simpleton. There had been some pointed remarks once the girl had returned to her father in the afternoons about her lack of worldliness that weren't complimentary, more feared liabilities in the chosen spouse of the future king. Lenna had been similarly disadvantaged when she arrived, but nobody had given two figs about her and she had no one to talk to anyway. Sansa Stark, however, was constantly on parade, and the girl was in danger of stumbling.

"She'll learn," he said gruffly, stifling a yawn. "You did."

"Not fast enough," she replied.

After eight years, she still felt that she was in constant danger of wading into unseen quicksand, court politics often passing right over her head. Sansa was certainly no better, walking right into rhetorical traps set for her by the queen. On top of this, the girl was still so enamored with Prince Joffrey that she couldn't see how tense and strained things were, how tenuous.

Sandor had told her what he'd heard of the goings on, the arguments between Ned Stark and the king. She knew them for truth herself, having been privy to more conversations between Jaime Lannister and the queen than she thought entirely appropriate. Cersei had been holding her closer, asking Lenna to take wine in her rooms after the evening meal as the queen sat and finished up her daily business. Ser Jaime often joined them, but frequently enough it was just the two of them.

"The queen has noticed it. Even Ser Jaime has, when I got and sit with them."

"What do you talk about when you go there?" Sandor asked. She enjoyed the way his voice rumbled in his chest, vibrating against her back.

"Myrcella most of the time, she likes to hear stories about her. And we talk about books and music and poetry. She has a bit of a romantic spirit, believe it or not."

"Fuck. You're her bloody friend." She felt him lean away, and when she craned her head around, she saw that he had tipped his own back against the stone, eyes searching the darkness out the window, the grooves around his mouth deep with a scowl.

"I'm her lady-in-waiting," Lenna replied. "A servant."

"You're the closest thing she's got. Who else would she talk to? It's a compliment." His face told a different story entirely.

"She tells me nothing of importance, we just...talk. I usually enjoy myself. More than I want to," she finished lamely.

It was true. Lenna struggled to reconcile her feelings about the Lannisters. They were, after all, the source of her greatest unhappiness, the reason she was in King's Landing and not at home in White Harbor. The queen herself had stopped her letters, further cutting her off from the family she loved, holding her as some tacit threat against her father. All the while, the whole pack of them treated her with and exceedingly intimate kindness. It was incomprehensible. Whenever she thought about it she grew angry and hurt in equal measure.

But it was disturbingly easy for Lenna to forget what they had done when she was with them, like they cast some spell on those around them. She enjoyed the glasses of wine and conversation in the queen's study, handsome Ser Jaime joking and teasing her, Cersei wanting to hear everything about the princess, to discuss the topics Lenna wanted to talk over with someone, anyone. Music and books and poetry. Anything but court life. The queen was a poor substitute for Tyrion, but it was better than just writing down her thoughts, and while Sandor would listen to her jaw on to her heart's content, she knew he did it solely out of affection for her and he seldom asked questions or gave his own opinion. So unlike Tyrion.

Tyrion. He was the hardest of all of them for her to understand. Cersei and Jaime were fairly transparent, as was their lord father. There was no conflict within them, they did what they did with a clear conscience, so secure in their pursuit of the best interests of the family. But Tyrion seemed so intensely aware of the despicable things his family did, the way they used others to serve their own ends without a thought to consequences or injuries, but he alone appeared to feel at least a little bit badly about it. Just not badly enough to stop it, to be willing to give up the benefits that fell to him as one of their clansmen.

Lenna wondered what it said about her that she was so able and willing to forget what they were when she was with them, feeling a bit like Sansa Stark basking in the golden light of their attention, keen to be part of a circle, even if it was a pride of sharp-clawed lions. Shouldn't she hold herself apart from them, keep them at a distance? Remember what they'd done to her, how they'd treated her and her family? She was sure that they had no idea how much she knew and understood, especially seeing as they acted as if everything was right in the world. In their world, it was, and hers didn't concern them in the slightest. She was welcome only so long as she was convenient, or so she thought.

"Does she ask you questions?" Sandor asked. His fingers were tracing lightly up and down her arm, ranging as far as her collarbones, rough fingertips ghosting over her skin and making her shiver.

"None worth remembering," she replied truthfully. She was quite confident she wasn't being used as a spy, the queen never asking her anything beyond what she had done with Myrcella that day, what she thought of this poem or that, or if they should employ this lutenist at an upcoming feast. Drivel, really.

Sandor hummed low in his throat at that, lowering his head and bringing his mouth next to her ear, breath hot against her neck. His hand slid along her jaw as he turned her face to his.

"I'll give you something worth remembering." There was the feral glint in his eyes that made gooseflesh raise along her skin.

This part of their relationship had started slowly. When he first began coming to the library, they did little more than they had before, sitting together and talking or reading. He was so hesitant, so polite with her, almost gentlemanly in his manner. They would sit together in the window as she read, his arm loosely around her as he brought her close against him so she could snuggle into the warmth of his chest. It was as if he was a little wary of her in the circle of lamplight in a way he wasn't in the darkness of some random nook. He didn't reach for her first, he didn't even try to kiss her, cautiously letting her set the pace. He would speak lowly in her ear, usually some snark about this knight or that lady in the story, and she would turn to look up at him in exasperation only to find him smirking back at her.

That was her cue, and his. It had been relatively chaste for quite a while, uncertain touches, whispered words, sweet, unhurried kisses. Completely unlike their stolen time in the Sept, in the passageways. There was liberty and quiet that allowed them to explore each other, at first Lenna taking the lead. Then, he seemed to gain confidence the longer she didn't push him away. The earlier hesitance and wariness ebbed, replaced by a burning curiosity and then daring. His hands began to stray, first rather innocently to her shoulders, her sides, her hips, fingers moving in greedy circles over the fabric of her dress. Then, the touches became not so innocent, tracing her collar bones, the swell of her breasts where they pushed up beyond the cut of her dress, rough fingertips leaving tracks against her sensitive skin that she could feel for hours after.

If she thought she'd been left breathless by his ministrations before, she hadn't quite understood what breathless meant. Lips followed fingers as he dipped his head to her shoulders, her chest and neck, anything he could reach as she sat reclined against him. It left her gasping and mewling, and just as often infuriated and frustrated. He'd hold her arms fast against her sides so she couldn't touch him in return, effectively trapping her as he did as he pleased. She could feel him smiling against her skin, hot want bubbling beneath her breastbone, even as the touch of his hands pulled the most delicious and feral sounds from her.

She quickly surmised that he adored making her squirm, running one long finger lightly along the the dip of her gown, skimming a palm up the smooth expanse of her calf, her thigh, as she sat cross-legged on the cushions with her rear pressed against him. The first time his hand had gone under her skirts had made her go wide-eyed with shock and embarrassment, but he had murmured such salacious things that instead of making her self-conscious, she had instead found herself yielding to him, pliant as putty as his hands rose dangerously. She felt shameless and tousled, knowing she was writhing and completely unable to stop herself. It amused him as much as it mortified her. She just wasn't abashed enough by her own behavior to stop, rather she craved it.

He didn't laugh when she retaliated. He was usually successful in keeping her turned away from him, her back against his chest as he explored her at his leisure. She could feel him stiff and hot, jutting against her backside, and she never missed the subdued grunts from his throat when she would purposefully and cruelly rub against him. She wanted very much to give him the same treatment he gave her, managing on several occasions to escape his iron-like hold and turn in his lap, running her hands over the firm planes of his chest and stomach beneath his tunic. She took great delight in watching his skin jump and skitter under her touch, especially along the hard lines of his abdomen. She'd gotten him out of his tunic once, practically straddling him to gain purchase on his skin. His chest and shoulders were massive, heavily muscled, his breast and abdomen covered in dark hair. She'd buried her nose in it, thrilled by the smell of him. There were scars everywhere, some pale and ghostly white, others raised and knotted. She mapped every single one from his breastbone to the waistband of his trousers as he watched her avidly, his own hands flat on the stone ledge, knuckles turning pale as he forced them to remain still.

She knew she could make him hiss if she slid her fingertips below his drawstring, tracing the line of hair from his navel to where it disappeared beneath his trousers. It always earned her the same punishment. One of those tense hands would fly to grip her slender wrist in his impossibly large grasp and pull her hand away, his eyes dangerously dark. His face was no longer playful, but an expression not unlike his battle-fury would settle across his features when she did that. It made her feel powerful.

"You don't know what you're asking for when you do that," he would growl, and it became a refrain because she did it again and again. It excited her to no end to work him to that state of want. She could see and feel the evidence of what they were doing, she wasn't blind or completely ignorant, and it fascinated her. She wanted to know exactly what it was that she did to make him react in that way, what he would do if she touched him there, to catalogue it. A purely academic interest, of course.

It made her ache.

In retribution, he'd become much bolder with her when he was in control, firmly running his hands up her legs, over her belly. He would undo the first few ties of her gown just so he could access one breast or the other, dipping a massive hand into her bodice to cup it, toying with her nipple, tracing those roughened fingers lightly around her curves as she pushed herself against him, desperate for more from him. It drove her absolutely mad, turned her into a puddle of want, distracted her until one night, off of a sudden, his other hand was _there_.

 _Oh gods_.

Standing behind the girls as they bent their heads over their scrolls, Lenna permitted herself a moment of delicious remembrance of what that had felt like. How his long fingers had been at first strange and then wonderful and full of fire. He'd pull her back against him, one hand at gently at work between her thighs, the other hand across her mouth to muffle her cries as heat coursed through her. He crooned into her ear, absolutely lascivious words of encouragement that made her blush later when she remembered them, continuing until she felt like she was splitting out of her skin, a long, inebriating moment of rapture as she strained against him with her head thrown back against his shoulder. She'd felt that way many times in the confines of her own room, thinking of him, but it was different. It was a voluptuous fullness that left her completely exhausted, and he looked so smug after he resettled her skirts and fastened her ties, turning her face to him so he could take in her flaming cheeks and dazed eyes. She tried to reach between them afterwards, to touch him in a similar way, but he only grunted and drew her hands away.

"Why?" she asked in frustration.

"Because I'd have your maidenhead right here against this wall," he growled, and the darkness in his face and voice was enough to stop her. For the time being, at least.

She was thoroughly distracted by the thought of what that would be like, knowing she shouldn't be thinking about such things as the girls sat hard at work over their assignments as she paced the length of the queen's study, fully aware of her own besotted smile. It wasn't seemly, or appropriate, but she couldn't help herself. A quick glance assured her that neither her pupils nor the queen had noticed.

The door opened with a creak and in shuffled the old Grand Maester.

"Your grace," Pycelle wheezed. "News."

The queen was startled from her own thoughts. She'd been standing by the window much of the morning, listening absently as Lenna went over the girls' lessons with them. Lenna had surmised that she less interest in what they were learning as she did in observing Sansa Stark.

The queen took the raven from Pycelle, her brow furrowing when she saw the seal. A fish. Her beautiful face went hard as she read, and she looked up sharply.

"Lady Helenna," she said quietly. "Please take the girls on a stroll around the gardens. I'll send a messenger when I wish you to return."

Lenna didn't bat an eye. "Yes, your grace."

Both girls rose, Myrcella without a care in the world, but Sansa Stark looked troubled.

They walked through the terraces toward the Blackwater, the girls enjoying themselves as one hour became two.

Lenna heard the fall of boots on the path, looking up to find Jaime Lannister approaching them with a dark expression on his face. Lenna noticed almost immediately that his armor was dusty and his face streaked with grime.

"What has happened?" she asked.

"Tyrion has been taken prisoner," he said lowly. Lenna felt the cool rush of blood from her face as fear flooded her.

"Who would do such a thing? And why?"

"Catelyn Stark. She claims he was behind the attack on her son."

"Surely she doesn't think Tyrion pushed him off that tower-"

"No, someone came after the boy. With a knife. Lady Stark believes it was an assassin sent by my brother."

"No," she breathed. "Jaime, there has to be some mistake."

"Of course, but Cat Stark has taken him prisoner on the road. There was a tangle in the streets, our men and Stark's."

"On the road?"

"Here in King's Landing," he said quietly, not looking her in the eye. That explained the state of his armor, of his face.

"Are you alright?" she asked, laying a hand on his arm.

"I thank you for your concern, but I am perfectly well," he replied, laying a hand over hers. "You are too kind, Lenna."

"Is there anything I can do-"

"Actually yes. There is. My sister requests that you stay with Myrcella and the children until this blows over. I am here to return Sansa Stark to her father."

"Let me go to her."

"Lenna," he said, reaching out to stop her by the elbow. "Lenna, he is grievously wounded."

"Who would attack the Hand of the King?"

"Well, technically, he isn't the Hand of the King." He wouldn't look at her as he spoke, his voice lingering on the word 'technically', producing each syllable individually. Dread thrummed in her belly.

"What do you mean?"

"He resigned this morning. He got into an argument with Robert, and he handed back the badge of his office."

"Sansa has no idea."

Jaime shook his head, squinting into the sun.

"Oh, gods, what a muddle. Will he live?"

"Probably."

Lenna looked at Jaime gravely. "Let me tell the girl. Please. It will be better coming from a friendly face."

"Mine isn't?" he quipped with a sardonic smile.

"You would joke at a time like this, Ser Jaime," she said wryly, her stomach turning just a bit at his nonchalance.

Inside, she was quailing. This was a very bad business, a move by the wife of the Hand against the queen's own brother. She remembered the fish that sealed Cersei's scroll from that morning, knowing it to be the sigil of House Tully. It would have come from Riverrun, then.

It took her twenty paces to walk to the girls, and in that time Lenna gathered all of her courage around her. It felt like acting a part in a play, crossing to the girl and pulling her aside while Myrcella went to her uncle, sitting her down on the bench, her little white hands in hers as she told her what had happened. Lenna felt strangely detached through the whole ordeal, like she was watching someone else, listening to someone else speak the words that fell from her own mouth.

She might have expected Sansa to cry, and her pretty brow did knot in worry, but when she spoke, her words surprised Lenna.

"Will we have to leave King's Landing?"

Anger and then pity flashed through Lenna. Sandor was right, the girl was a silly little bird.

Sandor XXV

He was assigned watch over the family while the business was sorted, pleased despite the events of the day to see Lenna in Cersei's solar. The queen was roving from one end of the room to the other, her arms crossed but grasping her customary glass of wine. Lenna read with Myrcella and Tommen, the youngest crawling into her lap and laying his golden head against her neck. She kissed him on the top of the head, her eyes flicking to Sandor's as she did so, and he was seized with the most overwhelming surge of feeling.

Their time together had become exhilarating, and he felt like he was constantly drunk when he thought about it. Which was all of the time. He had to be careful to keep the stupid smile he wanted to wear off his face, to keep the Hound front and center. At first he'd been hesitant, not wanting to scare her, to offend her. To hurt her. He'd fucked plenty before, but he'd never had a woman who wanted him. He certainly didn't place what he was doing with Lenna in the same category as his exploits through the brothels and alehouses of Flea Bottom. It made him self-conscious, knowing he didn't really know how to treat a woman in that way, never having given a thought to a whore's pleasure. He wanted to satisfy her, to give her delight, and it made him deadly nervous at first.

He needn't have worried so much. She practically begged for him, her body twisting against him, sounds pouring from her throat at such pitch and volume that he had to keep a palm firmly over her mouth as he stroked her from crown to toe, cataloguing every single reaction so he could use it again later. He wanted to learn to play her body like a lutenist played his instrument, finely tuned and perfectly plucked. Her vocalization was music to his ears, hearing those sharp and guttural exclamations, a sharp bolt of excitement making his cock twitch almost painfully when his name leaked from between her lips. He learned that as much as she liked it when he was forceful, the way to turn her into a quivering mess was to tease her mercilessly with a featherlight touch, to keep her from being able to touch him in return, to keep her waiting and wanting. Until he was ready, at which point he was merciless, making her cry out and shudder, her face flushed, breathing labored, eyes nearly black as she reached for him.

And she tried to touch him, gods, how she tried, once managing to pull off his tunic and sit astride his hips. He'd nearly spent himself right there like a green lad in his trousers, her soft little hands running over him, twisting in the hair on his chest, smoothing over his stomach as he shook with the effort of not hiking up her skirts and taking her maidenhead on that window ledge, his fingers digging mercilessly into the stone to keep himself from touching her. He was well aware she wouldn't have stopped him, would have been an eager participant, but he simply couldn't bring himself to do it. Not there, not now.

Looking at her with the children made him swell with a sad hope. She looked so content, moulding herself to little Tommen as he absently sucked his thumb, too old for it but looking so happy pressed against her. An image flashed through his mind of her sitting with children that looked like her, that looked like him, in such a fashion. It was one that he had become so familiar with, that filled him with such longing.

He'd never wanted that before he met her, a wife and a family. Perhaps he just didn't think he deserved one, that no woman would ever want that with him. Besides, he had nothing to offer. But she wanted him, said she loved him. The remembrance still filled him with wild joy and disbelief in equal measure. The minute she had said those words to him in the Sept, those irrevocable words, it was all he wanted. He had struggled against himself to return those words, sending up the weak prayer that he could that she would be satisfied with his reply. Words could not say what he wanted, what he had always wanted her to know, to understand. He hoped that she knew him well enough to see that even that much was tantamount to a vow. It had certainly felt like one. They were the best words he'd ever uttered.

As happy as he was when he was with her, he was likewise despairing when they were apart, his rational mind lobbing the impossibility of a life with her at him like a siege engine. He had nothing to give her, nothing to offer beyond his person and the protection he could afford her. It made him think back to his foolish hope in White Harbor, her father promising him _anything_ if his precious daughter was delivered safely from the mess that was coming. He'd allowed himself to muse on the possibility of demanding her hand, convinced that her father had no notion that he would do such a thing. He thought about how eager she was when he held her fast against him, how easy it would be to slake this terrible hunger, but still he stopped himself. He could not risk her reputation, her standing, nor could he trust himself if she touched him as he touched her, so he kept himself from her, almost mad with need by the time he made it back to his bunk at night and slammed the door.

It wasn't right to think about such things while he was on duty, but he couldn't help it, especially when she darted her eyes to him from underneath her lashes like she'd been doing for the last several hours. The children had just been sent to bed, Lenna and the queen talking about Myrcella's progress in High Valyrian, when the door to the solar opened and Jaime Lannister entered.

He'd cleaned himself up, but his face was grim. He nodded to Sandor as he walked in, immediately taking up a glass of wine.

"I'll go, your grace," Lenna said, rising to her feet. Sandor hoped they'd dismiss him, too, so he could have the pleasure of seeing her back to her rooms.

"Stay, Lenna," Jaime said with forced nonchalance.

Sandor almost growled at how easily the other man said her name. He still hated the comfortable rapport between them. Jaime was a natural flirt, though Lenna did little to encourage it. It was clear that Jaime liked and respected her, just in the same way his little brother did. That his sister did.

He'd known Jaime Lannister since he was a lad, the eldest Lannister brother but five years his senior. He'd never treated Sandor with the same disdain as his sister had in his youth, and when Sandor had joined the Lannister guard when Cersei married Robert Baratheon, still a youth of thirteen or fourteen, he'd looked out for him. Sandor didn't keep track of his namedays, but Jaime had seen to his training himself, already a Kingsguard, and he held a grudging respect for the man.

"Well?" Cersei said, turning to face her brother from her place by the darkened window.

"He will live," Jaime replied. "He is in a tremendous amount of pain."

"What were you thinking?" Cersei hissed, crossing the room with anger in her stride. "Attacking the Hand of the King-"

"He is no longer Hand," Jaime replied, looking up at her sullenly. "His wife has taken our little brother, does that mean nothing to you?"

"Such a fuss over Tyrion. He's not worth the effort."

Sandor saw Lenna stiffen at that, but she wisely said nothing and her face remained unfailingly pleasant.

"He is our brother. Any action taken against him is taken against our House. An insult that we cannot ignore."

"So what will you do now?" Cersei asked waspishly.

"I'll ride north with father and take him back. It's simple."

"You will march a Lannister army against the forces of the Hand's wife? Do you know what that will look like?"

"I cannot help it, Cersei. It must be done."

She was blazing with ire. Jaime had the grace to look regretful, but Sandor could tell that the orders and preparations had already been made.

"When?"

"Tomorrow. It will take weeks to get to the Riverlands."

"The Riverlands?"

"Our quarrel is with Catelyn Tully, not Eddard Stark."

Cersei cocked her head. "What will he do?"

"Right now, nothing. He's unconscious, Pycelle has him drugged on Milk of the Poppy. He'll not awake soon."

"Giving you time."

"Yes," he said lowly. "I suspect father will join me shortly."

"Bloody Tyrion, he always gets in the way," Cersei hissed.

"He has never been easy," Jaime replied with a tiny smirk. "But he is our brother."

"As you never fail to remind me."

Jaime sighed and ran his hand over his face. "More wine, Lenna?"

Sandor looked over to see Lenna extend her glass to the Kingslayer.

"What do you think, Lenna?" Cersei asked. Jaime poured wine into her goblet with a smile about his lips. Sandor looked on the scene with mild distaste. It was the first time Sandor had heard the queen use her name like that. Previously, she'd always been Lady Helenna. She was being absorbed, and he didn't like it any more than he knew what to do about it.

"I am sorry for the whole affair, your grace," Lenna replied. "I'm sure I don't understand the nuances, but it seems an impossible situation."

"Yes," Jaime said.

"Do you think Tyrion worth this trouble?"

Lenna paused, her brow furrowing only slightly. "You know that I am very fond of Lord Tyrion, your grace. It greatly worries me that he has been captured as I am sure he is not responsible. I will pray for his safe return. He is not guilty of this crime, I am sure of it."

"And if he was?"

"Then Lady Stark has gone about seeking justice the wrong way."

Cersei looked at Jaime with a flash of satisfaction. "But she is wife of your liege-lord."

"Your grace, I have served this household for many years. I owe my livelihood and my happiness to you. More than that, I know Lord Tyrion well, and I am sure that she is gravely mistaken to have accused him of trying to harm her son. Lord Tyrion has always been a friend to me, and I steadfastly believe him incapable of such a thing. She may be the wife of Lord Eddard, but that does not mean I have to agree with her. I would be surprised if Lord Stark does, frankly."

"Do you think my brother acted rightly, then?"

Lenna looked at Ser Jaime shrewdly. He had flicked his gaze to her, his face carefully neutral, though Sandor could see the subtle shift in his jaw that showed he was grinding his teeth. He wanted her approval for whatever reason. Lenna looked at Jaime steadily, her own face as a mask of courtly impartiality.

"I think Ser Jaime did what he felt he must. As Lord Tyrion's brother."

"So I should not stay angry with him?" Cersei replied.

"Who am I to tell your grace what to do?" Lenna replied, looking to the queen with a smile. Sandor saw Jaime briefly close his eyes as he looked away. "But I should think, if Ser Jaime is to leave tomorrow as he says, that the present would be better spent in peace than anger."

"Father always said you were wise," Cersei replied, and Sandor was amazed to see the harsh lines of anger in her face softening before his eyes. "Perhaps you are right."

Lenna remained with them another hour, at last being excused when her yawns began coming several every minute.

"See her safely back, Clegane," Cersei said, turning to look on Jaime. Her brother was looking at her raptly, not even tearing his eyes away to bid Lenna goodnight.

The two of them walked side by side toward her room. Sandor was having difficulty turning over the strange conversation in his head. On one hand, he was thoroughly confused as to why they would permit Lenna to be there for such a confrontation. It then occurred to him that they no longer saw her as a Northwoman, but one of them, and beyond that, someone whom they trusted. It made his marrow turn to ice.

He had been impressed with her words, the way she was able to diffuse a fraught situation delicately and without ever really saying what she thought. She had taken a chance in saying that she disagreed with Catelyn Stark, but it had been the right risk. He found that he agreed. It was one thing if Lady Stark believed Tyrion was at fault for her son's injury, it was another to capture him on the road and hold him prisoner. It wasn't how things were done, and he was sure the hurt from such an action would be grievous and long-lasting.

They reached her door, the light sputtering around them.

"You see, Sandor, I've done as you told me," she said quietly, resting her hands against his armor. He wished he could feel her palms against his chest, and he laid his own hands against hers where they lay.

"Aye, you have," he replied. "Though I do not like it."

"Couldn't be deeper in the eye of the storm than listening to the queen bicker with her brother."

"No, but the less you know-"

"We're far past that now, aren't we?" she asked, looking up at him. He closed his eyes and exhaled deeply. Her fingers were in his beard now, though he flicked his eyes to make sure there was no one to see. He knew there wouldn't be, but he had to be sure. He bent his head quickly to press a kiss to her upraised lips.

"You should get to bed," he said gruffly. Her fingers tightened their grip when he tried to pull away.

"Stay," she whispered. He was taken back to that night in Winterfell when she had begged him to stay with her, arms locked around his neck. She'd been drunk then, and he'd shaken her off, confident that she didn't know what she was asking. He'd wanted to badly to follow her into her chambers and bar the door, just as he did now.

She wasn't drunk now, and she definitely knew what she was asking for.

"No," he replied gently, morosely. "You know I won't."

"Why?" she asked.

"What do you think would happen if I was caught leaving your rooms, Lenna?"

"We could get caught anywhere-"

"It's not the same as being found in your bedchamber. No, I will not risk it."

"Don't you-"

"Don't ask me that," he growled, pushing against her firmly. "You know fucking well I want to."

She looked disappointed, but it couldn't be helped.

"I have to keep you safe," he said by way of explanation.

She made herself smile at him, and he leaned down to kiss her once more, hand finding the ring of her door and pushing it open. When she closed it, he made his way back to his own room, his mind working furiously to forget the way she'd looked at him, clear-eyed and hopeful, as she asked him to stay with her.

A/N: Sorry for the delay! I am traveling and it has been quite an adventure shall we say. There is much change afoot!

So this is me pushing T. It isn't my favorite chapter, but as awkward as it is, feedback is appreciated. I've never really written like that before, so there is a certain level of self-consciousness at play. Some embarrassed giggling, maybe a little bit of mortified forehead-slapping. Be gentle. Be Sandor. I would like to include more episodes of this variety in the future, and you know that your words are my guide. So…

Review! I beg you! Love to you all.


	26. Chapter 26

Lenna XXVI

Lord Stark was unconscious for six days. In that time, Ser Jaime left the city and rode north toward the Riverlands where his brother was being held. Lenna felt vaguely nauseated thinking of Tyrion in captivity, and a low level of anxiety had gripped the court, made worse by the fact that she had been unable to talk with Sandor since the incident. She dearly wanted to know what he thought of it all. Especially seeing as when Ned Stark awoke, hobbled by his injury, the king did not seek retribution. Rather, Robert reinstated his Hand, much to everyone's shock and to the queen's fury.

She had appeared in her study in a cloud of righteous anger, a bruise blooming over her fine cheekbone. Lenna had risen almost immediately, Myrcella barely looking up from her lesson. Since Sandor's reassignment, Cersei had kept them close, often listening in as the princess' lessons continued in her private study. Sansa Stark had been kept to the Tower of the Hand after her father was wounded, staying close to him as he recovered. Lenna suspected her absence had more to do with Cersei's displeasure over the mess her mother had made.

When Cersei came into the room, she immediately made for the decanter beside her desk, pouring out a goblet of wine and downing it in a single gulp. She quickly refilled it, but her tense fervor slowed to something resembling her usual poise.

"Your grace," Lenna said lowly, and the queen turned to look at her. The mark on her cheek was fresh and beginning to darken. "You are injured."

"I'm perfectly well," the queen replied, arching an eyebrow at her.

"If I may, your grace," Lenna whispered, rising and walking quietly toward her. "I have a salve that can help with that before it purples."

"I want people to see it," Cersei spat.

"Your grace, the princess…" Lenna let her voice die away as she saw recognition overtake Cersei's fair face. She nodded briskly.

Lenna retrieved the tin of salve from her bag and returned to where the queen stood.

"Shall I, or would you prefer-"

"You do it," the queen said harshly. Lenna pressed her lips together and scooped out a fingerful of the paste, smoothing it between her fingers to warm it and make it more pliable. It was strange being so near to Cersei. They were almost the same height, and the queen was watching her avidly as she dabbed the balm across the forming bruise.

"That will stave off the worst of it, I imagine," Lenna murmured.

"My thanks, Lenna," Cersei replied, the expression on her face unreadable. "I would ask that you attend Lady Sansa in the mornings for at least a few weeks. The princess will stay with me, and I'll see to it she does her work if you leave her assignments."

"Of course, your grace."

"Lord Stark is Hand again, and Lady Sansa will need a friend now, I think."

From the expression on her face as she pronounced the word, Lenna was sure the queen cared very little as to whether or not the Stark girl had a friend, but she did want a pair of eyes on her. It made Lenna's stomach clench.

She went to Sansa after breakfast was done and Myrcella was at work on her lessons. She and Sansa walked and chatted, and Lenna even took up a needle again. The girl was a fine seamstress, and Lenna learned a trick or two from her. Lenna even accompanied Sansa to watch her father as he sat on the Iron Throne issuing judgements in the name of King Robert. The girl fairly glowed with pride to see her father perched in the king's seat.

Lenna was impressed as well, Lord Stark was a fair and honest man, just as she remembered from her youth.

Those mornings were long, consisting mainly of listening to mostly petty complaints, a long list of business dealings gone wrong. Duplicitous contractors, stolen sheep and the life. Lord Eddard looked strained and sallow, stretching his injured leg and shifting his weight frequently. The Iron Throne looked uncomfortable to begin with, she couldn't imagine being stuck on it in his condition.

That morning, even Sansa was beginning to grow bored when the a disheveled man in ragged clothing made his way to stand before Lord Eddard, his cap nervously gripped in shaking hands.

"State your grievance," the Hand said, his voice gentle and soft as he looked at the poor man.

"We come from the Riverlands, your grace," the man said in a tremulous voice, addressing the Hand as if he were the king. Lenna immediately pitied him, he was so evidently ill at ease in such unfamiliar surroundings. "We're being scourged. They're moving through our lands like reavers, burning our fields, our granaries, our homes. Our women...they took 'em. Then they took 'em again."

Lenna felt ice gush through her innards, turning quickly to Sansa. The girl shouldn't hear such things, but Sansa stood rapt and pale of cheek. Whatever she'd been expecting to come out of the man's mouth, this was not it. Tales of destruction and rape were not the norm in peaceful Westeros, especially in the Riverlands. All she could think about was Ser Jaime's intended destination, hoping against hope that these doings were unrelated to Tyrion's capture and the Lannister march north.

"When they was done, they butchered them as if they was animals. They covered our children in pigshit and lit them on fire."

Lenna covered her mouth with her hand, feeling the tell-tale prick of tears behind her eyes. Sansa's mouth was parted in faint horror. She looked to Lenna, her auburn brows furrowed with lack of understanding.

"Brigands, most likely," Pycelle said from his place on Lord Eddard's left. He coughed, completely unfazed by the man's testimony. The Hand was looking at the man sharply, and Lenna knew what he was thinking. It wasn't a band of brigands, and the man was speaking true. He was clearly terrified, but left with no recourse but to petition the king for help. Lenna despaired that any would be sent. How could the king send men after his own wife's kin?

"They weren't thieves," the man said defensively. "They didn't steal nothing. They even left something behind, your grace."

"It's the King's Hand your addressing, man, not the king," Pycelle said waspishly as the man misused the title for the second time. "The king is hunting."

 _Yes,_ thought Lenna, _that's not surprise_. Robert had never enjoyed the day-to-day of ruling the kingdom he had won. He had been on a hunt ever since Lord Eddard was well enough to go back to managing his affairs of state.

Another man stepped forward with a heavy, bulging burlap sack. Without any explanation, he upended it onto the floor of the throne room with a squelching sound. The room was suddenly filled with the stench of rotting fish as several dozen putrid trout and perch slithered out onto the floor. Sansa covered her nose in disgust, turning to leave. Lenna grasped her by the elbow, forcing her to stay.

"Watch, child," she said lowly.

"Fish, sigil of House Tully. Isn't that your wife's house?" Baelish said from his seat to Lord Eddard's right. Lenna narrowed her eyes at him. He knew full well it was Catelyn Stark's house. He'd been fostered himself at Riverrun, which everyone with a pair of ears in the capital knew. Just as they had all heard the rumors that Littlefinger had been in love with Catelyn Tully since childhood, thwarted when she was betrothed to the eldest Stark at Winterfell, thwarted again when he was slain and his younger brother stepped forward to honor the alliance. Lenna struggled to imagine Petyr Baelish in love with anyone, but the expression of glee on his face as he needled the Hand was signature Littlefinger. She had never met a more unpleasant man.

Lord Eddard didn't even spare the odious little man a glance. His focus was entirely on the peasant standing before him.

"These men, were they flying a sigil?" The man looked back at him blankly. "A banner?"

"None, your- Hand," he faltered. "The one who was leading, taller by a foot than any man I've ever met. Saw him cut the blacksmith in two. Saw him take the head off a horse with a single swing of his sword."

The room, already quiet during these odd proceedings, grew silent. Ice was growing in Lenna's gut as she, and every other courtier present, remembered seeing someone do exactly that at the Hand's Tourney just over a month before. That knight had delivered horror after horror, and Lenna blanched to think he was the one wreaking havoc through the Riverlands.

Baelish turned and whispered something to the Hand, but Lenna couldn't make out what he said.

"You're describing Ser Gregor Clegane," Lord Eddard said flatly.

"Why would Ser Gregor turn brigand?" Pycelle rasped with incredulity. "The man is an anointed knight."

Once, Lenna might have thought the same. That no man who had taken knightly vows could behave in such a manner. But that was in her childhood, before she'd learned something of what the world was, and listening to this poor common man describe what had happened to his friends and family, she realized how truly sheltered she still was. Ser Gregor's title was no shield for his actions, it was not the definition of his character, and she believed Ser Gregor capable of all manner of atrocities. She shuddered to remember Sandor describing what he'd done to queen Elia Martell and her children. What he'd done to _him_.

"I've heard him called Tywin Lannister's mad dog," Baelish said, just loud enough for Lenna to hear. It made her shudder to think of those cold green eyes, knowing beyond doubt that Tywin was capable of ordering such attacks. Her own father's account of the Reynes echoed in her ears, the sad refrain of _Castamere_ that she'd been forced to sing on so many occasions.

"I'm sure you have as well," Baelish continued. He smirked at the Hand, his pointy little mustache twitching. "Can you think of any reason the Lannisters might possibly have to be angry with your wife?"

 _Of course they do_. She thought back to her strained conversation with the queen and her brother the week before, how she had on the face of things agreed that some action needed to be taken against Lady Stark for her capture of Tyrion. She never would have imagined that they would have set a monster loose on common folk to prove a point, to intimidate another House. But here was this man telling a tale of unimaginable horror and every indicator pointed to Lannister involvement, if not a direct order.

"If the Lannisters were to order attacks on those under the king's protection that would be-" Pycelle began, only to be cut off by Petyr Baelish.

"It would be almost as brazen as attacking the Hand of the King in the streets of of the capital." His face was alight with some nefarious pleasure, eyes glinting and a smug smile pulling at the corners of his thin lips. He was looking at Lord Stark with an expression that plainly said 'I told you so.'

The Hand briefly flicked his eyes at Baelish, then clenched his jaw. Leaning forward, Lord Eddard cleared his throat gruffly, obviously affected by the man's story.

"I cannot give you back your homes or restore your dead to life but perhaps I can give you justice. Lord Beric Dondarrion?"

The young marcher lord stepped forward. Though slight, Lenna had always thought him handsome with his red-gold hair and serious mien. He looked steadily at the Hand, awaiting his orders, hand on the pommel of his sword.

"You shall have the command. Assemble one hundred men and ride to Ser Gregor's keep." Dondarrion nodded deeply, taking a step back.

With effort, Eddard Stark rose from the Iron Throne, leaning heavily on his cane. He drew himself up as tall as he could given his injury, and when his voice rang out into the hall it was a hammer striking an anvil.

"In the name of our king, Robert of House Baratheon, first of his name, King of the Andals and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, Protector of the Realm, I charge you to bring the King's justice to the false knight Gregor Clegane and all those who share in his crimes. I denounce him, and attaint him. I strip him of all ranks and titles, all lands and holdings, and sentence him to death."

Lenna let out a breath she didn't know she was holding, her admiration for Ned Stark boundless. Despite the horror of the poor Riverman's story, she felt a sense of elation at the decree, recognizing the Hand's sense of justice. He was nobility personified, standing there in such obvious pain, his face pale against the dark beard but his voice strong and his gaze steady. There was power in him that made her have hope for what lay ahead of them.

"My lord, this is drastic," Pycelle said, leaning over. "It would be better to wait for King Robert's return"

Stark didn't even look at him. "Grand Maester Pycelle, send a raven to Casterly Rock. Inform Tywin Lannister that he has been summoned to court to answer for the crimes of his bannerman. He will arrive within a fortnight or be branded an enemy of the crown and a traitor to the realm."

The little joy Lenna had felt now fled. She felt very sure that Eddard Stark had just made a horrible mistake. The Lannisters would not take kindly to his order of execution against Gregor Clegane, but they would be infuriated by this threat, even if it was deserved. Lenna looked at Ned Stark as if for the first time, seeing him for what he was, for what she had once been: a starry-eyed idealist who believed in honor and justice.

She hoped very much that he was right, that King Robert would stand behind this decision, but her belly was full of dread. He was further provoking the Lannisters, and that clan had been strengthening themselves for many years, their obvious hold over the capital miserly and tight. It would take more than a scolding to bring them in line, and that scolding was more likely to result in outright conflict. Of course, Lord Stark was still newly arrived, and she doubted he had any notion of just how deep the Lannister claws were embedded. She also doubted he had any idea of what he'd just done, how much more difficult and tenuous he had just made his own position.

Lenna turned quickly and fled the room, unable to remain any longer. Sansa trotted after her. A quick glance showed that the girl was confused and disturbed by the proceedings, but Lenna didn't know if she was ready to answer questions for her. She felt sure that they had both just witnessed something momentous, the enormity of which they would not know for some time.

"Awful business," she said lightly when she could stay silent no longer, tamping down the tremors in her belly. "I knew there was a reason I didn't go very often to hear arbitration."

"Isn't Ser Gregor the Hound's brother?" Of course Sansa would ask that immediately. Lenna pursed her mouth and thought before she answered.

"He is," Lenna answered shortly. _As different as different can be_. "They are not much alike apart from the obvious."

"Why did father do that? Order Lord Tywin to come?"

Lenna closed her eyes briefly to gather strength, then turned her attention to a stray thread on her dress, feigning casualness. The truth was she didn't know what had possessed the Hand to do such a thing, not unless he simply didn't understand how things worked in King's Landing. It was either that or he simply didn't care. From what she could tell, Ned Stark ascribed to an unwavering sense of honor, a belief in the old ways. The ways that she had been raised to admire and uphold. The ways that she had reluctantly come to realize were impractical, idealistic, and, at their heart, foolishly naive.

 _Perhaps they are foolish, but they are noble. Surely there is honor in living by them, even if you know it is folly._

"Ser Gregor is his bannerman," she replied simply, wary of saying too much to the girl. "As his liege lord, Lord Tywin stands responsible for his crimes."

The girl's fair brow knitted together further, her blue eyes narrowed in disbelief. She had so much to learn, and Lenna was no longer sure she'd have enough time. Whatever was coming was approaching quickly, and Sansa would be caught unawares.

"But Lord Tywin didn't order that beast to-" the girl protested.

"Of course not," Lenna said quickly. Sansa was becoming more upset than Lenna would have imagined. "He will come and answer and it will all blow over." _Wishful thinking_. _Or maybe a prayer._

"He's the prince's grandfather. Joffrey will be very cross."

For a moment, all she could feel was the shock of disbelief, then anger rolled over her like a rainstorm. Lenna bit back her retort, wondering if all Sansa cared about was whether or not Joffrey Baratheon was angry with her. The capital could be collapsing around their ears and Sansa would be singing hey-nonnies so long as Joffrey smiled at her. She deposited the girl back with her Septa and made her excuses, keen to be away as quickly as she could, her own mind a flurry of anxiety.

She retreated to the library as soon as she could, taking comfort in the stacks. At first, she'd felt a thrill of hope at the Hand's pronouncement. Stripping Gregor Clegane of his titles and lands would mean they could go to his heir with royal approval, in this case his brother. Sandor Clegane had just received the chance of a Keep and an income from his brother's cruelty, and Lenna could think of no better recipient of such a windfall. He wouldn't be just a bodyguard, even if he continued to refuse to take the vows of knighthood. He would be landed, and if not wealthy, at least sustained by his own peasants. It wouldn't be much, but it was more than he'd had before, and it might give them a fighting chance, however small. It may mean they weren't as doomed as they both believed.

Even this was not enough to comfort the awful tide of foreboding in her gut. She felt that Lord Stark was completely unaware of the significance of what he had just done, how potentially disastrous it was to have made such a show against the Lannisters.

"Lady Helenna."

She froze, forcefully jabbing her quill onto the parchment. She had been copying a long passage, and now a flood of ink had been released across the paper. It looked like the blood that had pooled beneath young Ser Hugh.

She wasn't quite sure how she'd missed Ned Stark's entrance, but she knew his voice at once. He was limping, relying heavily on his cane, and it clicked loudly as he came toward her. She allowed herself the briefest moment of hesitation before girding herself with protocol.

"My lord," she said, rising and bobbing a curtsey. She even managed a faint smile.

"Please," he said, indicating her chair. She sank back into it and he pulled up another, settling into it with a grieved sigh. She'd thought him a handsome man as a girl, distinguished with his strong jaw and prominent nose. His whole face spoke of strength, right down to the determined expression of his dark grey eyes. A face like that was far too easy to read, as open to her as the book before her.

"I had heard you are quite a scholar," he said, his voice kindly as he pointed to her work.

"I have that reputation," she said quietly.

"And what are you reading?"

She hid her disquiet with a faint smile, sure that he knew that she was wondering why the Hand of the King had come to make small talk. She turned the book and slid it toward him. It was a dry and dusty account of the Ninepenny Kings.

"A historian," he said with a low rumble. "Tell me, do we learn anything from our past?"

"Not that I can see, my lord. I fear we are doomed to repeat it." _Castamere_ , a voice whispered. It might as well have said _Riverrun_ or _Winterfell_. Or _White Harbor_.

A long silence fell and Lenna could feel his eyes upon her.

"I am going to send Sansa back to Winterfell," he said at last. Lenna looked at him sharply. "And Arya. I do not think this is a place suitable for young girls."

"You are wise, my lord," she replied carefully, having thought the same many times since their arrival in the capital. Little Arya she hardly ever saw, but getting Sansa as far away from the queen's claws as possible would be for the best. The girl was too green, too sweet, and too foolish, especially now that affairs were growing more complicated by the moment.

"You came here as a young girl yourself, if I remember rightly," Stark said. Lenna didn't know why he was pretending not to know the whole story. She was sure that he did.

"Yes, my lord," she answered placidly.

"And you've done well." He looked at her askance, question in his gaze. She felt her cheeks heat and couldn't tell if it was from pleasure or shame.

"I have managed, my lord."

"Do you miss your home?"

"Of course I do," she replied, furrowing her brow.

"Do you wish to go back?"

"My lord?" she asked quickly. A quick flash of white hope batted against her breast. One that was quickly extinguished by the onset of reality.

"Lady Helenna," he asked slowly. "Would you like go back to White Harbor?"

"Of course I want to," she said quietly. "It is my home."

"There is room on the ship I have hired for my girls. You can go to your father."

She gawked at him for a long moment. He regarded her evenly, his grey eyes calm.

"I'm afraid that's impossible, my lord," she said softly. "My duty is here with the princess. I cannot just leave my post."

"You wouldn't ask for her permission."

They both knew he didn't mean the princess.

"I understand what you're suggesting, my lord," she said carefully. "I am simply saying that it cannot be."

"Lady Helenna, as your liege lord I can offer you protection enough to make your way safely home."

"And Lord Stark, I truly appreciate what you are trying to do for me. But again, as much as it pains me," her voice failed for a moment, her throat thick, "I cannot accept this offer."

The expression in his eyes went steely.

"You understand that once you refuse that I will not renew it again."

She closed her eyes, feeling the place where she had so carefully mended her heart after last leaving her family tear again. To turn her back on Cersei would do them no favors, not to mention against the direct orders of her father. But some other craven part of her knew her hesitation wasn't just a desire to do her duty, to protect them. It would mean leaving him, and she couldn't even entertain the thought.

"I do, my lord. And I believe you are doing the right thing in sending your girls away. Their place is not here, not now. Mine, however, is."

He nodded curtly. "I do not pretend to understand, my lady, but I respect your decision, of course."

"Thank you, my lord."

He rose to leave, but he stopped, again leaning heavily on his cane.

"Perhaps you could help me with one last thing," he said, turning back to her.

"Of course, my lord."

"There is a book I'm looking for. A lineage."

She thought for a moment her heart had stopped in her breast, but in short order it rose to her throat and began to thunder violently.

"They are here, my lord," she said quietly, rising and going to the shelves, feeling like a shadow.

"One begun by Maegor," he clarified.

She'd already begun looking, knowing which one he wanted without him naming it. She also knew that it wasn't there. Lenna took a deep breath and swallowed as she went to her knees, making a pantomime of looking for the volume.

"It is not here, my lord. It should go in this space," she replied. In an eerie reenactment of her meeting with Jon Arryn the year before, she laid her fingers in the spot where the book should have been.

"Have you seen it? Has anyone asked for it lately?"

She turned to him. "They are very dry, the lineages," she said by way of explanation. "As to someone asking for it, well, I'm not the librarian."

"Who might know then?"

"Grand Maester Pycelle would be the best person to ask. This is technically his domain. But..."

"But what, my lady?" he asked, his brow contracting.

"It is thick with dust, my lord," she replied, swiping through it and showing him her smudged fingertip. Two years' worth of grime. She could still see where her fingers had disturbed it then, the accumulation lighter where she'd touched her fingers there what felt like a lifetime before.

Eddard Stark sighed.

"I gather the Grand Maester is seldom here," he said, nodding to her table.

"You're correct, my lord. Still, if anyone knows where that book is, it would be him."

"Thank you, my lady. If you should reconsider my offer, I can wait-"

"I won't, my lord, but I thank you all the same." She couldn't look at him as she said it, refusing her chance to flee home a final time. If he asked again, she might not remain strong enough to say no.

His gaze flicked over her then, sizing her up, and he saw disappointment in his eyes. Whether in her answer or in her person she did not know. She comforted herself with the fact that despite her deception, she had not lied.

Sandor XXVI

He could see the flicker of the lamplight as soon as he came through the library doors. He hadn't been able to steal away for a week, and it was later than he usually got there. He was a little surprised that she would still be there, thinking for a moment that perhaps she had simply left the lamp burning and gone to bed. He permitted himself a long moment to just look at her, at her hair in a long braid over her shoulder in a style he hadn't seen in years, the contrast of her dark brows against her pale skin, her rosy mouth. It made his chest burn.

She was sitting on the window ledge with her legs drawn up to her chest like a child, her arms wrapped tightly around her body as she looked into the darkness beyond the glass. Her face was pale and drawn, and he knew immediately that she'd been crying. _Cries at fucking everything_ , he thought affectionately.

He had much to tell her. He had not been present when Ned Stark had sent Beric Dondarrion after his fuck of a brother, and he wished with all his might he could have heard that decree. He wished he was one of the party, even if the Hand's action would anger the queen and her family. He may be a Lannister guard, but he rejoiced in the thought of Gregor Clegane's head on a spike. He hoped they brought it back to the capital instead of sending it to Clegane's Keep. Little could make him happier than the opportunity to spit on it.

The Keep. Odd as it was, it could be his now. It would take a decree and the agreement of Tywin, but he had little doubt that it would pass to him now that Gregor was marked. That would piss his brother off, too, the thought of the runt getting the family lands. It wasn't much, a drafty pile of stones in the rocky foothills of the Westerlands, but the land was rich, good for tilling and grazing. There were always the kennels. You could glimpse the Sunset Sea from the ramparts on a clear day, and he'd had a flash of standing there with her beside him almost as soon as he'd heard the news. It was a foolish idea, taking her there. Taking her anywhere. But he was the heir now, and the Keep and its income were his, not his brother's. It wasn't much, but it was something, so much more than he'd had to offer before.

"Crying for my brother?" he asked, trying to smirk. She turned her head and without any preamble rose and came to him, wrapping her arms around his chest and burying her face against him. The urgency of her embrace set him a little off balance. He brought his arms around her, resting a hand on the back of her head. Something about her manner dulled his pleasure at seeing her after so long. She held him tightly, desperation in her grasp. He could feel her faintly trembling.

"I'm sorry," she muttered, pulling away after several moments. "I suppose you should be congratulated. Holdings of your own." She smiled wanly and he returned it, feeling in his gut that something was very wrong. He waited patiently for her to tell him what was going on. He knew better than the push, and knew she wouldn't be able to keep it from him for long.

"Lord Stark was here," she murmured, her lashes fluttering darkly against her cheek.

"What?" he growled.

His mood instantly darkened. It would do Lenna no favors if she was seen talking to the Hand, if there was perceived to be any kind of alliance between them. As far as he could tell, Ned Stark was a doomed man, and Lenna needed to stay out of his dealings, even if he was her liege lord.

"He's sending his girls back to Winterfell," she said. "He's not going to tell anyone, just put them on a ship in three days time." That was not all too surprising. If he was a father, he'd get his children out of this viper's nest, too, if he could.

"He asked me to go with them," she whispered, looking up at him with such great sadness in her eyes.

"And what did you say?" Terror gripped him at the thought that she'd agreed, that she was leaving him. Not only that, it would be the gravest mistake to turn her back on the queen like that, especially given-

"No," she gasped, and it had the same ring as clashing swords. "I told him no. I can't. It's impossible."

"You're right," he said lowly, raising a hand so he could brush her cheek with his thumb.

"He...he thinks that I'm on their side now, doesn't he."

"You are," Sandor replied shortly.

She looked at him with the strangest expression, like a lost child looking frantically for her mother. She searched his face as if he had some important secret to tell, or perhaps to see if he was being serious. He knew she had never been able to think of herself like that, as one of _them_ , but she was as sure as she was breathing. And to stay that way, indefinitely, she had to act like one.

"All I ever wanted was to go home, and I just told the person who could take me there no. I could be away from all of this-" she gestured wildly to the room, rising hysteria in her voice. Sandor felt like she'd run him through the chest with a boar spear.

"That's not what I meant," she said in a rush, grabbing his hands when he stepped away. She must have seen the look on his face. "Sandor, whatever is happening, it's just the beginning, isn't it?"

"Aye." He nodded, moving away from her to sit down on the ledge. He stretched his legs out and sat with his elbows on his knees, looking at her as she paced.

"What's going to happen?"

"Don't know. Nothing good," he said truthfully.

"What do I do?" she demanded, her voice almost a hiss. Her eyes were large and fevered, and he could see the strain in her face, a flicker of tension in her temple.

"What you've always done," he replied. "Keep your head down, do what you're asked to do. I'll take care of the rest."

"If Cersei asks me-"

"Then you fucking tell her. I have half a mind to make you go to her now, to tell her everything you know. When was Stark here?"

"This afternoon. After the judgement."

"Did he say anything else?"

She nodded again, casting her eyes down. What had already been alarm now grew into full-blown panic in his belly. She had gone very still, standing with her hands by her sides, balled into fists.

"Lenna, just fucking tell me," he pleaded. "I can't help unless you tell me."

Her eyes were wide with fright. "That book. He wanted that book."

Sandor was on his feet in no time. He strode to her and grasped her by the shoulders.

"Tell me you didn't give it to him. Please," he said urgently, bringing his face down to hers. He was gripping her tightly, overcome with foreboding. Surely she knew better than to give Ned Stark anything, especially that bloody book.

"No," she whispered. "I don't have it. It's not here. I looked."

"For him? Was he here when you looked?"

"Yes, I pretended to look for it, but I knew it wasn't there."

"What did you tell him?"

"I told him that I hadn't seen it. I told him that I wasn't the librarian, if anyone would know where it was, it would be the Grand Maester."

Sandor growled deep in his throat.

"We're going to the queen."

"What?"

"You are going to go to the queen and tell her that Ned Stark was looking for that book. That Jon Arryn had looked for the same. And you're going to lie and tell her that you personally never laid eyes on it, but that it is certainly curious that they both wanted it."

"I...I can't do that, Sandor."

He walked toward her slowly, taking both hands in hers.

"Lenna," he said lowly. "I don't think you quite understand what I'm telling you."

"You're asking me to betray Lord Stark," she said hotly, her eyes narrowed in anger. "You're telling me to go to the _queen_ and tell her-"

"I'm telling you to save yourself," he whispered harshly. "Do you want to go home one day?"

She looked up at him wildeyed. "Yes."

"Then you will go to Cersei _now_ and you will tell her."

"It's late. Perhaps in the morning."

"Now."

Tears welled up in Lenna's eyes. "What if-"

"There are no what ifs. You'll do it. If Ned Stark lets on that he's spoken to you, alone, in private, about that bloody book, to the king or anyone else and it gets back to Cersei- Lenna, you must be who they want you to be. This isn't a question of doing what is right or wrong. You have to protect yourself. That book could mean nothing, but if Cersei gets wind that you've been talking with Ned Stark - alone- you are putting yourself at great risk whenever it comes."

"When what comes?"

"Can't you feel it, Lenna? War. War is coming."

"I understand," she whispered harshly. "Sandor, what have they made of us?"

"Survivors," he replied.

She swiped at the tears on her face, looking dejected and pitiful. He drew her into him, resting his chin on her head and closing his eyes in pain when he felt her convulse against him, sobs racking her body. He hadn't heard her cry like that since the day she learned of her mother's death. Great gulping sobs like she was being torn in half from the inside out. He tried to hush her, but it only made her keen louder. This time though, instead of being trapped on the other side of a door, he could at least hold her. He stooped to pick her up from behind her knees and pulling her into his chest.

He sat cross-legged on the window ledge, angling himself as far into the corner as possible. She wrapped her arms around his neck like a child, her body trembling as he ran his hands over her back to quiet her. He felt useless and foolish and terribly, horrifically guilty.

They'd been approaching this precipice for years, incrementally in a way he knew she hadn't realized. He had. It had started with her arrival, isolated and alone in King's Landing. He'd seen it for what it was even then, the Lannisters making a play against a powerful Northern house, couching a threat in an honor. And she, sweet and naive, she had borne the brunt of it, ignored and forgotten for so many years. He wanted to blame her, to curse her for drawing attention to herself. If the queen had never lighted on her, perhaps she could have been bound for home with the Stark girls, away from this horrible mess, never missed. But no, the Lannisters had spotted her and found a use for her, had glimpsed the light in her he'd always seen. That damn belief in virtue and honor and knowledge drawing her dangerously close to them.

 _It's the same in her fairy stories_ , he thought darkly. _The dragons always want the virtuous maidens for their own_.

It was the same thing that had first attracted him to her, such a contrast to his darkness. Good, innocent, and optimistic, seeing the best even as her world was destroyed around her, each little hurt making her cling to those beliefs even harder. He'd mocked her for it for years, to himself and to her face, but it wasn't because he thought she was silly. He coveted her faith in justice and right simply because he could not remember a time when those things had been true for him. She made him see _beauty_.

And wisdom. And honor. But they'd seen it in her, too, starting with that damned Tyrion. He should have told the queen that she was meeting with her brother in library at the beginning. Perhaps they would have sent the girl home in shame. _Or married them_. But he hadn't, he'd festered and moiled, and he knew it didn't really fucking matter. Either way, she was theirs now, much more than she was his.

And now, even though the chance to escape was in her reach, she was more trapped than she ever had been before. He hadn't thought it possible when he'd spoken with her father years before, listening to them discussing hurricanes and eyes and winds, that they would be teetering on this ledge. A point where she would have to choose between protecting herself and protecting others, and it would wreak havoc on her.

He had mourned the loss of her innocence before, the transformation she undertook when they returned from White Harbor, the change in her hair and her bearing. It had been nothing in comparison to what she was about to do. She had been able to maintain her integrity all of these years, and he knew that going to the queen and reporting on Ned Stark could break her. This task she would have to complete, it could be her undoing, and he wished with all of his heart he could do it for her. He wished he could go with her to the queen and tell Cersei himself, but there was no way he could bear that responsibility. She had to do it herself, and she had to do it without hesitation.

She had stopped crying, sitting up and looking into his face. He traced a finger along her cheek, brushing her hair back from her forehead.

"How? How can I do this?"

"You needn't say what you think," he said lowly. "Only tell her what happened."

"That he offered to take me away?"

"No, leave that out of it. Just tell her about the book. Tell her that it struck you as odd that both Stark and Arryn would be looking for the same thing. That you'd never seen that book."

"Did anyone see you take it to Arryn?"

"No," he replied. "They saw me go to the Hand, but I've been sent on errands for him before."

"It was a big book," she said doubtfully.

"I'm a big man," he replied with a hint of humor. "They didn't see what I had under my cloak. Besides, it was two years ago."

She nodded, bringing a hand up to his face and running her fingers along his cheek. Her eyes welled up again.

"No more of that," he said firmly, gruffly, using his thumb to wipe them away.

"I can't stop-" He shushed her with a kiss, his mouth on hers.

"You must," he said, cupping her face in his hands and swiping at the fresh tears. "Think about what your mother would say. She'd tell you to bear up, wouldn't she?"

Lenna nodded.

"She'd be so ashamed of me."

Sandor firmly grasped her by the shoulders. She looked so defeated, refusing to look him in the eye.

"No," Sandor said emphatically. Any companion of Joanna Lannister's wouldn't have been so sheltered or naive. "She understood the game. She knew the costs."

She was wretched as they made their way through the Keep toward the queen's chambers. Despite the risk, relying on the hour, he grasped her little hand in his as they walked, not missing the way she clung to it or the way her fingers shook. He relished the feeling in spite of his dismay, reluctant to release her when they approached the queen's rooms.

He was right, the queen was awake, sitting alone in her study. The guards stepped aside as soon as they saw Sandor and Lenna approach.

Cersei looked up from her glass of wine in confusion.

"What's this? Clegane? Lenna?"

"I ran into Lady Helenna in the passageway and she asked me to escort her to you, your grace," Sandor said, stepping aside to let Lenna by.

"Come in, of course," Cersei said. Her brow was furrowed with concern, taking in Lenna's slight dishevelment and downcast eyes. "What ever is the matter?"

"Your grace," Lenna said quietly. He was proud that her voice didn't falter. "Lord Eddard came to the library this afternoon. Looking for a book."

Cersei cocked her head, sliding her eyes to Sandor as if he could help her understand.

"And?"

"It wouldn't be that irregular, your grace," Lenna continued, "except last year Lord Arryn came looking for the same book."

He could see Cersei turning the information over in her head, determining whether or not it was important.

"Did you help him find it?"

"No, your grace, I couldn't."

"Why?"

"Because it's always been missing."

Cersei's brows shot up to her hair in surprise.

"What book was this?"

"That's the peculiar thing, your grace. It's a book of lineages. Not exactly riveting reading." Gods bless her for trying to imbue humor into this report. "Your grace, it probably means nothing, but it was so odd that it has bothered me all day. I'm sorry to disturb you with it, especially so late."

"Don't be, dear Lenna," the queen said, putting a hand on Lenna's shoulder. "I'm sure you are right, that it's just a coincidence. But I'm glad that you've told me, and I'm sure you feel better for it. Would you take a glass of wine?"

"No, your grace, I think I'm for bed if I have your leave."

"Of course," Cersei said, smiling. "Sleep well. Clegane will see you back."

She was halfway back to the door when Cersei called out to him.

"Clegane," she said dryly. "You may have gained lands and a keep, it would seem."

"By your grace," he replied solemnly.

"There will be no contest from me. I doubt my father will protest, though he will not be happy about this unfortunate affair with your brother."

"Thank you, your grace."

She nodded, that furrow again on her forehead.

Lenna walked ahead of him by a pace, her hands pressed together in front of her so tightly her knuckles were white in the moonlight. She didn't speak a word until they reached her door. To his surprise and disappointment, she didn't let him kiss her, turning her head when he bent to do so, his lips landing on her smooth cheek instead. It felt like she'd slapped him, and when she had silently gone into her rooms and closed the door without even a word, hurt twisted in his gut like a knife.

He stood facing her door for a long time, until he heard boots coming down the corridor. He turned and made his way slowly toward the barracks before his feet changed his direction and led him to an alehouse in Flea Bottom.

It was late, and the place was more or less deserted. It was for the best. He selected a bench in the nearly empty establishment and a tankard was brought, filled and refilled again as he silently drank to the memory of Helenna Manderly's innocence until he stumbled back to his bunk .

A/N: I hated making her do this. I really, truly did. But we know that things can't be easy, don't we? We know where all of this is going. Besides, there's no story in simplicity.

I did lift much of the judgement dialogue from the show. Just being honest, it wasn't my work.

Thank you for the encouragement on Chapter 25. I'm still working on it, and the next chapter should have some fluff in a similar vein if you need the enticement to continue.

Please read and review! I am a little obsessed with checking for notifications...and I might also watch my story stats...so for the dozen of you that always review, THANK YOU. For the other...let me see...188 of you who read Chapter 25...it only takes three seconds. No pressure. ;-) Remember, I take your ideas into account when I'm plotting. To be honest, when I originally mapped this sucker out, they didn't hook-up until after Blackwater. So, you got your carrot a lot earlier because I listen to what you want! Let me know! Can't guarantee that I'll use it, but I definitely take it into account.


	27. Chapter 27

Lenna XXVII

Walking in the gardens brought her a measure of peace. The breeze stirred the branches of the great trees gently, the warm currents off the harbor kind as they stirred the loose tendrils that had escaped the coil of her hair. She took great gulps of the air, savoring the salt tang it left on her lips, on her tongue, something else to hold on to as she attempted to set herself to rights. She did not know if it was a battle that could be won.

She had stayed away from Sandor since he'd left her at the door to her rooms. She went from her rooms to the queen's study and then back to her rooms. No prayers in the Sept, not evenings in the stacks. She had even begged off dinners, claiming a cold and taking her meal in her rooms. It had been days since she'd seen him, and she felt his absence like a part of her was missing, but she simply couldn't face him.

She was angry with him. Despite knowing that he'd been right, that he'd had her safety foremost in his mind, she could not help but be angry. Though she knew this, she was also aware that any ire she had for him was misplaced. She had no one to blame but herself. Even Sandor Clegane couldn't make her do anything. She had gone to Cersei herself because she was afraid, a coward, too worried about her own skin. It cast a pall of self-loathing over her the likes of which she had never experienced. She shied away from her image in her glass, unable to meet her own eye.

She paced the lower terraces, keeping her gaze on the infinite undulation of the sea, trying to draw comfort from its ebb and flow as she had used to do. As a child, it had soothed her to see its constant motion, knowing that no matter what the water would continue to flow. Each ridge and ripple, so glasslike and hard, was absorbed and woven back into the main, just as she wished she could be, to return to the familiarity of her old self. But her old self was frayed and thin, like an overworn garment, threadbare and prone to tearing. She presently felt so brittle that she thought the odd inhalation would snap her and she would disintegrate into shards and dust.

"Lady Helenna?"

The voice was thin and reedy, and she recognized it at once. Sansa Stark appeared from around the corner of the hedge, her blue eyes dark with tears.

"Lady Sansa, whatever is the matter?" Lenna said, approaching the girl, forgetting her own cares for a moment.

"Father says we are to go back to Winterfell," Sansa choked out, her lovely little mouth taking the shape of a childish pout.

Lenna hid her lack of surprise with disappointment. "I am so sorry to hear that."

"My life is over."

Lenna reminded herself that the girl was very young, and a sense of the melodramatic was to be expected. She wanted to so badly to scream at her that she was lucky to be going home, to not have to make the choice, to not have to choose the capital.

"No, dear girl, it isn't, but I know you have enjoyed your time here."

"I cannot be parted from him," she cried, wringing her hands like the besotted heroine in one of her old books. "I shall die."

"I know it feels that way-"

"I haven't done anything wrong, why should I be punished? I love Joffrey-"

"You hardly know him," Lenna said sharply. _If you did, you wouldn't claim to love him_.

"I want to marry him and have his golden-headed babies," the girl sobbed. "Father won't listen to me."

 _Of course not_ , she thought. _Who would listen to the wants of such a silly girl?_ Instead of saying a word, Lenna wrapped Sansa in her arms and rocked her as she cried. The girl only wanted a sympathetic ear, a shoulder to cry on. She'd get over whatever disappointment she was feeling, quite forgetting it by the time they reached her home.

 _At least, I would_ , she thought. And she knew it to be a lie.

It wasn't just her betrayal of Lord Stark that troubled her as she walked the gardens and paced her rooms. What continued to flummox her was how quickly she had refused Eddard Stark's offer to send her home. The refusal had been immediate, rising up from her gut before she even thought twice about the implications, and it had nothing to do with her family's safety or her own. She simply could not fathom being parted from Sandor, not by her own choice. Once she would have taken the chance to go home without question, consequences be damned, but not now. White Harbor, she realized, was no longer her home. He was.

Which explained the tremendous guilt that blanketed her each time she thought of him. He was always in her thoughts, which meant she'd spent quite a bit of time mulling over how she'd withdrawn from him. She had refused to kiss Sandor when they returned to her chamber door from the queen, had seen the disappointment in his face when she had turned her head and darted into her chamber. She couldn't help but think of the long, lonely months after they had returned from White Harbor, when he had withdrawn from her. It had felt like he'd stolen her lifeblood, turning her listless and despondent. Now she was turning the same treatment back on him, refusing to even be in the same room. It was not fair, and she knew it. He was not to blame for their current predicament anymore than she was. It was just Sandor that told the truth, that held nothing back, and that had pressed her to go to the queen. She knew that he'd done it because he wanted her safe, and he had no compunctions when it came to that. The outcome was more important to him than the means.

Though she took her dinner in her rooms again, still claiming to be suffering from her cold, she forced herself to go to the library when the rest of the Keep had gone to bed. She was relieved when Sandor showed himself in the library. She truly hadn't expected him to come. She feared she may have undone all the progress they'd made with him feeling comfortable with her. She regretted being so cold with him, struggling to read there in the silence. She was trying to distract herself with the First Men, wanting to be as far away from the present as she could, tracing her fingers along the strange runes the maester-scribe had recorded on his vellum, harsh and jagged, just like her thoughts.

She found it impossible to concentrate, instead toying with the end of her braid, wrapped in his green ribbon. She'd taken to wearing it as she used to when she retired for the night, finding comfort in unweaving it from the heavy coil and plaiting it so simply. The green ribbon was still her favorite, reminding her of those earlier times when she didn't have the faintest clue about Lannister treachery, when she'd simply been miserable because she was lonely. He had seen that loneliness, and he'd given her that token of friendship. _Of love_ , she thought. It had always been love, even if they both tried to deny it, and it tore at her to remember the expression on his face, the hurt in his eyes when she'd turned her face away from him.

When he stepped into the circle of her lamplight he looked grave and apprehensive. His face was shuttered, his eyes dull as that little muscle twitched underneath the scruff of his beard. She felt full to the brim of remorse as she looked back at him, still so disgusted with herself that she couldn't find the words to reassure him. She usually had too many words, but she could do nothing but look dumbly back at him, not even knowing where to begin.

"Are you still angry with me?" he asked quietly, and she knew how much such a question cost him. He struggled to speak his feelings, and such a query showed just how vulnerable he was, how much she'd hurt him.

"No," she replied, compelling herself to stand up and walk around the table. "Are you with me?"

He shook his head. "I never was."

"Neither was I," she replied. "Not really. I was angry with myself, and I couldn't face you. It was wrong of me. I hope you can forgive-"

"Of course," he said quickly, his eyes burning into hers, his expression ferocious. He didn't speak for a long minute, just stood there looking at her with great pain in his face. "Is this how it felt for you? When I wouldn't-"

She nodded and he set his teeth, looking away from her. She hated to think of those days in their past when he had pulled away from her so completely. She knew his reasoning, even found it noble in a strange way, but it had not deadened the hurt and the loneliness. If anything, the past few days had been eye-opening for her as she realized it wasn't anger that kept her from looking at him or from going to their usual places. It was shame.

He approached her slowly, quietly, as if still worried she didn't want him there. She wanted to throw herself at him, needed the reassurance of his arms around her, but keenly felt that it was not his job to make her feel better.

"You didn't go to the Sept," he said, tentatively slipping his fingers into her palm. "Why?"

"I'm too ashamed to face them," she replied harshly, willing herself not to cry.

"Lenna," he said, lifting his hand to her cheek. She closed her eyes, aware of the tears on her cheeks, of his fingers brushing them away like a murmur. _You hurt him and he's the one comforting you_. "You did what you had to do. You did nothing wrong."

"Then why does it feel like I have?"

"Because you're good," he said. "Much better than them, than me. Better even than Lord Stark."

"I betrayed-"

"You protected yourself. If anything happens to you, Lenna, I don't know what-"

"Don't talk like that. It isn't so dire, is it?" When she looked at his face, she realized that perhaps it was.

He didn't reply for a long time, just stood looking at her with his thumbs running along her cheeks and jaw. Those grey eyes were full and so sad as they held hers.

"I'll be gone for a few days," he said quietly. "I did not want to go without seeing you. I didn't want to leave things like they were."

Her heart swelled and she wanted to go on to her knees for his forgiveness again.

 _You don't deserve him._

She settled for laying her lips against the back of his hand, not missing how his lips parted or the soft sound of pleasure or relief from his throat. His hand traced down the side of her face until it rested against her neck, his thumb on her pulse. He liked to feel it thrumming, often resting his hand there on her neck, sometimes replacing fingers with his mouth, like he was reassuring himself that she was real. Alive.

"Where are you going?" she asked softly.

"The prince is to go hunting with his father. We should be back before the end of next week. Maybe sooner, depends on the prince."

She nodded, taking another small step toward him. She laid her other hand on his elbow, comforted when he raised his arm to wrap around her waist, drawing her closer. His hands were warm against her, and she took a moment to lean her forehead on his breast, her nose in that soft triangle of hair that peeked above the neck of his tunic. She felt his mouth against her head, his touch light.

He dropped her hand, raising his own to lightly cup her cheek again as her own fingers trailed over his shoulder and into the hair at the base of his neck.

"Look at me," he rumbled. She tilted her face up to him, trying to smile.

There were times when he looked at her like that when she felt a blush start all the way at her toes. She felt unworthy of that kind of devotion, especially after the business with Lord Stark. She felt sullied and little even when she wasn't thinking about going to the queen, turning over such a paltry piece of information to help preserve her own skin. And then worse, she'd turned from him in the most cowardly way.

She realized now that it hadn't been the book that was important. Sandor knew that. She didn't know the purpose of the book, its value, and neither did he. It was an odd happenstance, that was all, though she was sure there was some significance to both Arryn and Stark wanting it. She also had decided she didn't want to know. And she knew that Sandor would be furious if she tried to find out.

The value in telling Cersei had been to leave the queen with no doubt as to her loyalties. She had less spied than she had proven that she would go to a Lannister over her own liege lord. She didn't like what that said about her.

"Stop," he growled.

She realized that while she had been looking at him as he'd bidden her, she had stopped seeing him, her thoughts so consuming that her vision had gone blank.

"What?" she replied, startled.

"You're punishing yourself, and you need to stop."

"It isn't that easy-"

"You have to try," he said with finality. His eyes were somber. "You have to be what they want. If I can see it, they can."

"They won't. No one knows me as you do," she replied. It was true. Just as she could read his face, he could see her thoughts as well. She doubted anyone could tell that she was disquieted but him.

"You can't risk it. You've missed supper for five days. The queen will start to wonder why."

"I've told her I'm sick."

"It will stop working. You have to-"

"I worry that I'm forgetting who I am," she said quickly, finally voicing that growing fear. Lenna Manderly of White Harbor was being replaced bit by bit with an unrecognizable woman, one who was selfish enough to play that game, however clumsily, who looked like them, spoke their honeyed words, who watched and waited and took care of her own skin first.

Sandor smiled, just the barest upturn of his scarred mouth.

"I won't let you," he said quietly. "You're still my Lenna. Nothing has changed that. You protected your family in refusing Lord Stark. You didn't put them at risk by turning your back on the queen. You didn't speak a falsehood when you told her about his question, either. You don't like that you put yourself first, that's all. And you wouldn't have if I hadn't made you. Blame me, if you must."

His eyes were melancholy and his hands had gone tense against her, like he was preparing for a blow.

"You didn't make me," she whispered. "I couldn't blame you, Sandor, not for protecting me."

His lip quirked again and something beneath her breast cracked painfully.

"See? My Lenna, same as ever."

Her heart pounded with alarming strength when he called her that again. He'd never said her name in that possessive way before, his eyes warm and so close.

She raised up on her toes and kissed him, her hands in his hair. She'd missed this. He drew her against him, his hands sliding slowly down her sides, resting on her backside as he pushed her closer. It thrilled her when he did so, grasping her there. She didn't think she could ever be close enough, pressing herself against in him a way that would have once made her blush.

Instead of being shy, she touched him boldly, running her hands along his arms. They were as big around as cannon, and she still marveled at the size of him. The muscles moved under his skin as he gripped her to him, his hands still roving as she moved her own across the breadth of his shoulders, up the thick column of his neck. He liked it when she twisted her fingers in his hair, tugging at the scalp, and it pulled the loveliest sounds from his throat, rough and raspy and full of need.

He pulled away from her slightly, looking down his nose at her.

"You're still sad," he said.

"I'm trying not to be," she replied, another hot blast of guilt rising up. She didn't want to spoil their last evening together for a few days. She'd already wasted so much time with him.

"I'll make you forget," he rumbled, eyes suddenly intent. His lips barely moved as he spoke. "Let me make you forget."

She nodded tentatively up at him, and he swooped down to catch her lips with his own. Without pulling away, he lowered himself until he could loop an arm underneath her backside and pick her up. It was always odd when he did so and she found herself suddenly the taller of the two of them. He carried her to their ledge with ease, like she was a straw or a blade of grass. He settled her on the cushions before him, chucking a pillow to the floor before he knelt between her knees.

"This is different," she said as he pressed his mouth against her neck, in the little space behind her jaw and below her earlobe. He nipped at it with his teeth.

"I want to watch you," he replied, and a dark jolt of pleasure rushed through her at the thought of his eyes on her.

He took his time, just as he always did, working her to a fevered pitch with his hands on her breasts, tickling up her thighs over her dress. He unlaced her bodice slowly, loosening it so it fell open. Her chemise was nearly sheer, and she raised a hand to cover herself, strangely shy. He'd touched her there many times before, but there was something different and alarming about him kneeling between her knees. She'd never been able to see his face before, and the hunger there was alarming and exciting, making the pit of her stomach trembled and her gut tighten. His gaze was ravenous and it made her self-conscious.

"None of that," he growled. "I want to see you. Please."

She let her hand fall, and he replaced it with his own, tracing and cupping her through the thin fabric, thumbs flicking over her already pert nipples. He was teasing her mercilessly, eyes darting between her body and her face. She could feel the heat spreading across her chest and up her neck, aware that her mouth was open and gasping. Seeing his hands on her was making her feel drunk.

He smiled at her with a wicked glint to his eyes and lowered his head. When his mouth closed around her nipple for the first time she thought she'd scream. She could feel him smile against her skin, tongue lazily lapping at her through the fabric, making her pant as she held his head in her hands and pressed him against her.

"I can't help you be quiet like this," he murmured, his hand roving below her skirts, breath hot against her sensitive flesh. "You'll have to try."

"How?" she panted, painfully aware of where his hands headed. He still hadn't touched her there yet, but she felt like she was going to die if he didn't do so soon. She was unabashedly grinding her hips toward him, but he tsked at her as she did.

"Your problem, not mine," he growled.

He pulled her forward so he was in the crux of her legs as she sat, her knees drawn under his arms on either side of his chest. They were nearly the same height like that, their positions giving him greater access to her, and he pulled on the tie to her chemise slowly, the fabric loosening, exposing her breasts to the cold air of the library.

"That's better," he said, warm hands on her again, tickling up her ribcage and dancing across her belly. She watched his face, his reaction to seeing her, and it sent a powerful rush of heat between her legs. She whimpered when his fingers brushed against her nipples and his eyes flew back to hers. He kissed her harshly, tongue hot and seeking, absorbing the sharp sound she made when his hand found its target beneath her skirts.

He cradled her face in his palm, moving his head to run his lips over her neck, to find her pulse with his mouth. He lingered there a while, a thumb find its way between her lips. Without knowing what she was doing she suckled and nipped at it, pleased to hear his grunts against her throat. He kissed his way down the length of her, pulling open her chemise further so he could press his mouth down her chest, between her breasts, pausing at her navel. She felt deliciously exposed, and might even have found the sensation ticklish if his other hand was not so pleasurably at work between her legs. Instead it made her gasp in delight.

With little warning, he rucked her skirts up, baring that part of her to his view. She froze, overcome with shame, pushing them back down even as she continued to mewl under his fingers.

"What are you doing?" she asked brokenly.

"I'm going to make you forget," he said, pushing her skirts back up again, his breath hot on her thighs. She didn't know what came over her, but she let him, letting out a strangled cry when his tongue touched her there and falling back on her elbows. She felt him smile and it made her shudder.

"I told you to be quiet," he said, looking up at her from between her legs. She nodded feverishly, but nearly cried out when he lowered his head again. He chuckled against her, raising a hand to her face and plunging his fingers into her mouth once more. She wantonly closed her lips around him, gratified to hear him groan, sliding her tongue along his fingers as they stifled her cries.

She could no longer think, fully concentrated on the feeling of his mouth on her, his fingers in her, stroking against a place she hadn't known existed, grinding herself against him like a wanton. The long moment of shuddering pleasure came, and she felt herself clench around him. But he didn't stop, only softening his touches for a few moments before sending her over that precipice again and again until she slumped, sweaty and spent, against the casement.

He sat back on his heels, his beard shining and his eyes gleaming. She didn't even bother pushing her skirts back down, but he pressed a kiss to the skin below her navel and pulled them down for her looking quite pleased with himself.

She didn't think she could stand, but she did retie her chemise and turned for him to take care of the fastenings of her dress. His hands dragged across her back, lingering as he did so, like he regretted the action. More than anything, she wished they were somewhere else, somewhere she could shuck the gown and the chemise and the smallclothes off, where she could pull of his tunic and trousers so she could press herself against him with nothing between them. Then, perhaps, they would be close enough.

But they weren't somewhere that private. He clambered up beside her, and she sank bonelessly against him, resting her head on his chest. Even if she'd wanted to tease him, to touch him, she wouldn't have been able to. She could barely lift her head. His hands were still active, running over her back and shoulders, playing with her braid, tugging at the ribbon.

"Take it down," he whispered. She had long noted his fascination with her hair. She'd always considered it her great beauty, thick and curling and dark. One of her first clues to his interest was the gift of his ribbons, the fierce pleasure in his face when he saw them woven into her hair. When he'd first kissed her, he'd plunged his hands into it, fingers twisting against the pins. She sat up now and pulled the green ribbon free, moving to untwine the plait, but he stopped her. He ran his fingers through it like a comb, separating the curls from each other until they cloaked her.

She didn't know how long it was that they stayed that way, her drowsing against his chest as his fingers played in her hair, but the sky was beginning to lighten outside the window when he gently shook her awake. She stifled a yawn, aware of her stale breath, surprised when he kissed her.

"Morning," he rumbled, his eyes intent.

She smiled back at him. "Morning."

 _What would it be like to wake this way each day?_

"Let's get you back to your rooms."

She nodded again, quickly rebraiding her hair as she followed him along the still sleeping passageways to her door, her hand tucked into his. He drew his fingers along her jaw and kissed her quickly before he left her, the faintest twitch of his lips lightening his brow.

Sandor XXVII

He'd cradled her against him, his hands in her hair, relishing the feel of her asleep against him before he'd seen her back to her room just before dawn. He wondered what it would be like to wake her every morning, for her face to be the first thing he saw, his voice the first thing she heard. He had savored watching her wake, the sleepiness in her dappled eyes sharpening under his gaze, the unsuppressed yawn, the way she stretched and pressed against him. Bidding her good morning was such a simple thing, and he couldn't quite grasp why it felt so important.

He'd engulfed her little hand in his as they walked through the passages, able to imagine for just a little while that they didn't have to hide themselves. It had taken determination to leave her at her chamber door, making his way back to his own bunk to pass the brief hour or two before he was to rise and leave. He should have slept, but he didn't, instead laying in his bunk and going back over all of it in his head, the taste of her still in his mouth, the image of her wanton still in his mind.

That had always been a particular dream of his, lapping at her like that, and it had produced a result far superior to his imaginings. One did not lick a whore's cunt, but it seemed a good thing to do to a lover. He'd heard men with more experience than him talking about what it did to a woman, and he knew it was what that bloody ballad was about, but he'd no idea how effective it would be. He'd smiled wryly thinking of _The Bear and the Maiden Fair_ and how even that ribald song could make him tremble when his brain transformed him into the beast. He certainly needed no help imagining her as the maiden fair, "sighing and squealing and kicking the air." She'd done that plenty the night before, and he was quite pleased with himself for doing that to her.

He kept his visor down as they rode out because he could not keep the smug smile off of his face. It had gratified him more than he wanted to admit when he'd made her shudder like that. He'd stuffed his fingers in her mouth to keep her quiet, but found that it excited him beyond measure, spurring him on when her tongue twined around him. It was easy to imagine that tongue doing the same thing somewhere else. It had been the first time he was truly tempted to let her touch him there, he was straining with need, painfully swollen, but he managed to keep his focus on her. It wasn't just about pleasure, it was about comfort, and she needed it, which was made even clearer by the way she had rested against him, her arm wrapped around his torso, her head fitted into his shoulder afterwards. He didn't know what to call that feeling, the fullness and satisfaction of giving her delight and then comfort, but he wanted more of it.

There had been something ineffably sweet about watching her sleep, watching her wake after having passed a night together. _Our first._ He'd been able to feel her stretch and sigh and yawn, and it had made his chest feel full, eyes greedily watching, storing it all away. To go from making her convulse to rousing her from sleep felt right, her trust in him warming. He wished he could do it every night and wake her every morning.

He thought about it more than he should, but it was a welcome diversion from having to listen to Joffrey prattle on. Sandor wasn't fond of hunting despite having done it most of his youth. His family's hounds were bred to the purpose, and he'd trained dozens of them in in it himself. It was a chore when one was on campaign, but he never derived much pleasure from it himself. Perhaps it lacked enough of a challenge. He'd take a man with a sword over a boar any day.

Not that boars couldn't be ferocious beasts. They certainly were, and the one they had spent the better part of three days tracking was no exception. It was a wily thing, eluding them and driving the dogs mad as it careened through the forests around the capital.

He didn't mind the evenings spent around a campfire, but the prince did. The boy was getting fractious, but they reminded Sandor of his days in the army, the camaraderie of a united purpose, a time when men didn't look at his scars. If anything, his face had been an asset in those days, striking fear into his enemies. This gathering was little different, and he enjoyed drinking a tumbler of ale and listening to the men talk so long as he kept his distance from the flames themselves. Even the king was jovial. He thought, as he often had, that Robert was the least likely king, though he wasn't upset it was his arse on the throne.

He vividly remembered the Storm Lord who had risen up against Aerys Targaryen. The Robert Baratheon of his youth had been a brute of a man not unlike himself, granted a few inches shorter. Robert had been powerfully built, handsome in the way that women liked with dark hair and blue eyes, and so good-natured that even Sandor liked him against his will. He was coarse and approachable, talking more like a soldier than the lord that he was. His younger brother, Stannis, had been the more proper of the two, clearly disapproving of his elder brother's ways.

Ways that involved an excessive amount of feasting, drinking, and carousing through every brothel and alehouse he came across. In the intervening years since he'd won the Iron Throne, Robert had grown fat, walked like he was always slightly drunk, and become tempestuous if bothered with affairs he didn't want to address. Which, in Sandor's opinion, was most of what was needed in the running of his kingdom. Robert Baratheon had been a fine leader in battle, but as far as Sandor could tell, he was a shit king, leaving the administration of the realm to a series of perfumed prigs who may or may not have the best interest of the people in mind.

And Robert was raising another shit king. Or, rather, he was ignoring one in the making. Joffrey attended his father every single day, and Sandor was flummoxed by how little the king actually had to do with his own son. It was like Joffrey was a pet lapdog, trotted out for some amusement before the king expected him to go back into his kennel. Sandor didn't like feeling sympathy for the little prick, but he wondered if the boy would be different if his father actually cared two figs about him. Instead, Joffrey tagged along at the rear of the hunting party or sat listening to his father tell stories that no lad should hear from his own father's lips.

 _Who tells their twelve-year-old son about "making the eight"?_

Sandor could tell that Renly Baratheon was annoyed by it as well. The King's youngest brother was hunting with them, and he'd been more than civil to his nephew. He'd ridden alongside them for several days, trying to make up for the King's lack of interest in the boy's presence. He'd even made small talk with Sandor, mostly about their meeting at the Hand's Tourney, quizzing him on how he sized up an opponent.

"I do believe," Renly said, reigning his mount beside Joffrey's as they ranged through the wood, "that your guard would have unseated Ser Loras had it come to it. The man saved himself the embarrassment of being saved by and defeated by the same man. You should make him take vows."

Joffrey had looked at his uncle, then back at Sandor with a little smile about his mouth.

"I like that he's not a knight, uncle."

"Do you?"

"Of course. If he were to become one, that would make him a liar, wouldn't it, dog?"

"Aye, my prince," Sandor replied.

"How so?" Renly asked.

"Dog?"

"I swear no oaths I can't keep, my lord. I'm not my brother."

Renly looked at him shrewdly, and it occurred to Sandor that where Robert failed as a king, Renly would probably excel.

The party grew tense whenever the messengers arrived in the afternoon, bearing word from King's Landing. Everyone was on tenterhooks to know what was going on in the Riverlands, whether Jaime Lannister had engaged with the Tully House forces yet, if Lord Tyrion had been returned to his family. Of course, Gregor was the topic of discussion as well, with everyone expressing their disapproval of what he was doing if the rumors were indeed true.

"Do you think your brother capable of such?" the king asked, cocking an eyebrow as ale ran sloppily down his chins. They were all seated around the campfire passing flagons between them, Sandor a little ways away where he could be far from the flames but still stay warm.

"Aye," Sandor replied, irked to be lumped in with Gregor, to answer for him.

"What would you do if you saw him?" the king asked.

"Kinslaying is looked down upon, your grace, but it would be tempting."

"Because you want the keep?" Robert Baratheon was looking at him directly, and Sandor didn't enjoy his scrutiny. For all Robert was a lazy king, he'd always been a solid judge of character. Sandor knew better than to lie to him.

"Because he's a fucking cunt," Sandor replied. At first, Robert's regard remained steely, an icy blue, but then the corners of his eyes crinkled and his whole face crumpled into laughter, guffawing so hard and long that his fat belly shook.

"You'll have the Keep then, just for making me laugh," Robert said. Sandor looked at him flatly over the rim of his cup. "What? You don't believe me, Clegane? Barristan, fetch me paper."

The captain of the Kingsguard rose and did as he was bid, briefly inclining his eyebrow at Sandor as he did so. Robert scrawled across the paper and signed it.

"There. It's yours now. No one will take it from you." Robert held out the paper and Sandor took it without a word.

He looked down at the piece of paper in his hand and read it through carefully, then once more for good measure.

 _To Sandor Clegane I grant the lands and holdings attached to Clegane's Keep in the Westerlands, to do with as he sees fit, and to be held by he, his heirs, or his assigns, forever._

 _R. Baratheon_

One sentence. That was all. A small collection of words and a royal signature, witnessed by a prince, the captain of the Kingsguard, and the king's brother. It couldn't have been more binding if he'd done it in the presence of his small council.

 _Mine_.

He must have been looking at the parchment strangely as Renly Baratheon leaned over to him.

"Do you want me to-"

"I can fucking read," Sandor murmured.

"Congratulations, then," Renly replied, clinking his tankard to Sandor's. He grunted.

That night when he bedded down he put the damn thing in his pouch, keen to show it to Lenna when he returned back to King's Landing. It was one thing to hope that the king and Tywin Lannister would grant him his brother's holdings, it was another to have the slip of paper that made it so in his grasp. He was almost afraid of the tenuous hope that had taken hold in his breast.

That night, he dreamt of standing on the ramparts with her as they had in White Harbor. There was a breeze and her hair was free and loose about her shoulders as she looked out from the walls, her little hand in his. He had an arm cast around her shoulders and she was leaning back with her head against his chest, her eyes fixed on some vague point on the horizon, but instead of the ocean of the North they looked out over the rolling hills of the Westerlands. Far away there was a sliver of sea, flaming in reflection of the red sunset that was spread across the sky. It cast a rose and scarlet glow over the old stone of the ramparts, and he dreamt that she squeezed his hand, turning her face into his neck as she so often did to press a kiss against his throat.

A/N: Sorry for the looooong delay! I calculated that I drove a little over 2,000 miles in the last week and a half. Lots of scooting around.

Thank you, as always, to everyone who has been leaving reviews. You know how much I love feedback! Keep it coming.


	28. Chapter 28

Lenna XXVIII

Sandor returned late the following week, bearing back a sulky Prince Joffrey. The boy was in a temper at dinner, stabbing at his meat with his knife and casting scowls at everyone who dared look at him. Sandor had stood behind him as usual, flicking his eyes to Lenna every once in a while. Instead of the expected annoyance or even humor, Lenna read something different in his gaze, something intense and urgent. She hoped that he would tell her what it was that made him look at her that way.

She waited for him in the library for a long while. She was on the verge of giving up and going to bed when he finally slipped in just as the oil was about to sputter out in her lamp.

"I kept you waiting," he said apologetically. "He was being-"

"Himself," she supplied with a bright smile. Sandor huffed in annoyance, but it didn't reach his eyes. He was pleased to see her, that quirk playing about his lips. They stood looking at each other awkwardly for a moment, then Lenna crossed the floor between them, not hesitating to wrap her arms around his neck. She rose up on her toes, gratified when his arms came around her, one hand burying itself in her hair.

"I missed you," he rumbled, ducking his head with an expression of pleasure on his features and a trace of flush in his cheeks. It amused her to see how uncomfortable it made him, saying things like that to her. He was so free with his hands, but his tongue was another foe entirely. It was more used to curses than soft words, and she reckoned it always would be. She certainly didn't expect him to suddenly become effusive. If he did, he'd not be Sandor.

"And I you," she replied, kissing him soundly, happy to see a true smile stretch across his face as he drew back from her.

"I have something to show you," he said quietly.

He had not been able to change clothes, and he reached his hand into his armor and withdrew the pouch that he kept there. She knew her handkerchief was in it, she'd seen it winking out when he'd given her Renly Baratheon's antler, but now he drew out a piece of parchment. Odd for him to carry such a thing.

He held it out for her to take, and she looked at him quizzically. A beaming smile unfurled as she read its contents.

"It is as you hoped," she said looking up into his face. It was as if someone had lit a fire within him, his gaze burning and earnest as he looked down at her. The effusive joy in her breast intensified and coalesced into a much quieter understanding. Her next words were nothing but a whisper. "Holdings of your own."

"Aye, and none can take them," he replied lowly. "A keep and lands. Away from here."

As he spoke, he was looking at her in a different way, a sharper way, and she felt in an instant that she knew what he was thinking. A keep and lands meant he wasn't just some sell-sword or bodyguard anymore. He wasn't a knight, but he was _someone_ with a role outside of the capital, should he ever choose to play it. _To his heirs, or assigns_ … He had holdings to pass on, if he had anyone to give them to. Their impossible situation became just a little less daunting.

"Sandor-" she began, her chest swelling with hope, eager to speak of it.

"No," he said lowly. "Not now."

She understood. It was new, and precarious, and he would not speak of it until he had a more solid understanding of what it could mean. He would not get his hopes up, or hers. As much as Lenna wanted to simply dream for a bit, she decided not to press him. She was sure she was not mistaken in understanding his reasons for showing her the king's grant. He was thinking exactly as she was.

"Someday," she said, and it was less a possibility than a promise.

"Aye," he replied, pressing his forehead to hers briefly before he collected the parchment and slipped it back into the safety of the pouch.

His eyes were full as he looked down on her. The elation she felt for him was replaced with a much more potent feeling, one she didn't have a name or words for. Instead of speaking, she slipped her hand in his, surprised when he lifted it to his mouth and kissed the back of her fingers, eyes still locked on hers.

The lamp sputtered, nearly burning out as the light flickered around them. He cocked his head, his gaze regretful as he pressed her hand between his two rough ones.

"I'll see you back to your rooms," he said lowly, the unscarred lip rising just slightly.

She wanted to smile back, but she couldn't. Whatever had just passed between them warranted something much more serious. Instead, she nodded gently and picked up the lamp, leading them out of the darkened library by its feeble light.

The passageways were deserted, but Lenna blew out the flame anyway. His hand found hers in the dark, esconcing her fingers in his warmth, the rough skin of his palm rasping against hers in a way that made her shiver. He leaned so his lips nearly touched her hair, close enough he could speak softly and no one would hear if they were spotted.

"Why are the Stark girls still here?" he asked.

"I don't know," she replied simply, a little taken aback at the change of subject. It had surprised her when Sansa and Arya appeared at dinner as usual three days after her conversation with Lord Stark, and she had not heard another word on the matter from Lord Eddard or from loose-lipped Sansa. She, of course, had no cause to question the Hand about it, and decided that perhaps he'd thought better of his decision to send them back to Winterfell. She disagreed, of course, but it wasn't her place to say so.

"How have things been since I've been gone?"

"Quiet," she replied. "At least, from what I can tell. The queen has been in a surprisingly good mood."

"The King is away," Sandor replied wryly.

"Aye," she replied, twisting her lips ruefully. There was no love lost between the monarchs. "But she was in a bit of a state yesterday afternoon. Took three glasses of wine for her to come back to herself. You know how she can be."

"What happened?"

"No idea," Lenna replied. "She went out for a walk right as rain, came back in a fury."

It was true. Lenna had been with Myrcella, as usual, and Cersei had come into the study radiating discontent. She had stood behind the princess, running a hand over her hair again and again, silently downing the wine as she did so. Lenna had looked at her in question, but the queen had shaken her head. Lenna knew better than to do anything further.

"How have you been, then?" he asked. Lenna knew the question for what it was. Sandor Clegane didn't make small talk, and he wasn't inquiring about her health.

"Better," she replied.

That was true, too. She was still bothered by her reaction to Lord Stark's offer, how she had gone to the queen to report on him, but things had died down. Nothing seemed to have come of the book, and the queen had not said another word to her about the whole incident. It seemed to Lenna that the whole thing had been forgotten, except on her part. She thought about it everyday, but was beginning to understand how right Sandor had been.

Things in the Keep were quiet. Too quiet. The courtiers were speaking in more hushed tones than usual, and the banquets were solemn affairs instead of parties. Lord Eddard did not attend them, and Sansa was often the only Stark who made an appearance during the daily goings-on. Lenna saw the snubs as clearly as anyone else, and she doubted Cersei was particularly pleased about it.

"Good," Sandor said softly, bringing her back out her thoughts. They were standing in front of her door. There was so much they could say to each other, but she knew he would not come in. She saw him glance quickly around to make sure they were alone, then he raised his hand to her face, drawing his fingers along her cheek.

"Goodnight, Sandor," she said, deciding what she wanted to say could wait.

"'Night, Lenna," he replied.

He took a step closer before ducking his head to he could kiss her. The embrace caught fire, his hands plunging deep in her hair, her arms twining around his neck as he pulled her tighter to him. It wasn't until she nearly dropped the lamp that they both realized what they were doing and where, and he reluctantly pulled away, tracing his fingertips under her jaw has he turned to leave. On a whim, she blew him a kiss, pleased when he cocked an eyebrow at her in response.

That night, she dreamed of him. Dreamed that she woke up with him beside her, much as she had that morning in the library, only they were in her old room in White Harbor and he was stretched out in her bed next to her beneath the quilts. It was a peculiar dream, she simply looked at him. He was asleep, the unscarred side of his face turned to her, his features relaxed. He looked older, despite being asleep, but so at ease. She did nothing except snuggle closer into his chest, her nose buried in the hair there, his arm tightening around her in his sleep.

She felt peaceful when she woke, dressing and going to Sansa Stark as she usually did in the mornings. The girl had not begun attending Myrcella again, but the queen had still asked Lenna to go to her. She was subdued, but she said nothing of leaving again.

They were sitting and sewing in the warm morning sunlight on the balcony when an out-of-breath messenger arrived.

"Lady Helenna is requested in the queen's chambers," he huffed.

Lenna rose in consternation, looking at Sansa.

"Whatever is the matter?"

"I was only sent to bring you, my lady," the lad answered.

Lenna put aside the hoop and needle, squeezing the Stark girl on the shoulder as she made her way out behind the messenger.

When she arrived in the Holdfast, the household was in disarray. She found her way into Cersei's solar to find the queen striding from one end to the other, the children gathered around her.

"Where have you been?" she cried when she saw Lenna.

"With Lady Sansa, your grace," she replied. "Whatever is the matter."

"The king," Cersei said. "He has been wounded. Stay here with the children. I must got to him."

"Of course, your grace," she said quickly.

The queen flew from the room then, and Lenna was left with the prince and princess, a green young guard looking terrified at his post by the door. Myrcella and Tommen simply sat, staring into nothing, their eyes wide with concern. They remained there for some time, Lenna coaxing them into half-hearted games as they waited for news.

With a bang, the door was flung open and Sandor came in. He was out of breath, and Lenna realized he must have sprinted the whole way.

"Bring them," he said shortly, holding the door so they could all pass through.

He led them down the passageways and into the king's chambers. Lenna had never crossed this threshold before, and she was immediately hit with the stench of death.

The king was laid out on his bed, a bloody, blackened bandage around his substantial gut. Joffrey was sitting in a chair by his bedside, the queen next to him. She looked at Lenna over Joffrey's head and Lenna thought she seemed far less distressed than perhaps she should. Joffrey, on the other hand, had clearly been crying. Ned Stark was standing by the window, looking blankly out.

"Let me see them," the king said weakly. His eyes were bleary.

It was Myrcella who pulled herself together and went to her father first, looking like a little queen with her shoulders back and her chin up. When the king reached for her hand, she extended it and sat down on his bedclothes, tears on her face. Tommen followed close behind, his little shoulders hunched.

Cersei looked at Lenna and then at Sandor, nodding to the door with a wan smile on her face. Still, she seemed calm.

Once outside, Lenna took a deep breath. The air was fresh as spring water, and she had to stop a moment and hold on to a pillar to gain her footing.

"Is he-"

"Aye," Sandor replied.

She turned to look at him and was not comforted by the look on his face.

"What will happen now?"

"We will have a new king," he replied. They looked at each other and a current of understanding passed between them.

"Oh gods," she sighed.

Sandor XXVIII

The King was dead. Sandor was standing outside the door to the King's rooms when he went, and as soon as the prince and the queen walked out of the chamber he knew. Joffrey was pale, looking like the boy he was, but his face was alight with something that wasn't grief. Cersei's features were similarly illuminated, satisfaction and something a bit more sinister lighting up those green eyes.

"Attend me in the throne room, Clegane," Joffrey said. Sandor hesitated for the briefest instant.

"Do as your king commands, Hound," the queen said, and he warily did as he was told.

The throne room was empty. He figured that the news of the king's death would begin to circulate through the Keep and he wondered what the reaction would be. He had not been there when Aerys Targaryen had been killed, when Jaime Lannister had slit the Mad King's throat, but he could imagine the scene, the royal blood rich and crimson as it spilled down the very stairs he now climbed.

The boy- the king- took his place on the Iron Throne, settling into it as if it were upholstered in silks and furs, his skinny fingers caressing the blades that made up the armrests, his eyes gleeful. He looked like a child on his nameday. His mother took the chair to his right, and with the barest tip of her chin she indicated that Sandor should take the place to Joffrey's left. He watched as the room began to fill with guards, the gold cloaks of the city guard as well as Lannister men in their red regalia. Along the base of the platform the white-plated Kingsguard assembled, their helms in place but their eyes all wary. Ser Barristan Selmy looked about watchfully, his face tight with suspicion.

 _Fuck._

Silence settled on the assembly, not even the king or his mother speaking as an interminable waiting stillness settled about them. It wasn't long before the members of the small council were brought into the room, escorted by members of the city guard as well as Eddard Stark's own men.

Lord Varys, the eunuch, looked around the hall with a sharply cocked eyebrow, his hands hidden in the folds of his robes as usual. Sandor thought he looked distinctly uneasy, his painted brows betraying his apprehension. Petyr Baelish, on the other hand, could barely conceal his unpleasant, puckish smile behind that pointed moustache, and Sandor's hackles immediately rose.

 _Something isn't right._

The only person who seemed calm was Eddard Stark, standing tall among the others with his gaze levelled directly on the boy-king.

Joffrey smirked at them all. Sandor knew the boy had been looking forward to this moment for most of his life, the moment when he would be able to tell them to do whatever he liked. The prince had been a shit, and he had no expectations that the king would be any better.

"I command the council to make all necessary arrangements for my coronation. I wish to be crowned within the fortnight," Joffrey said, drumming his fingers against the throne. His face was calm, but then his mouth pursed as he looked at the party before him. "Today I shall accept oaths of fealty from my loyal councillors."

There wasn't a sound in the room, and none of them moved to be the first. Sandor wondered at it. Surely, one of them would take the initiative and bend the knee.

Ned Stark shifted his weight, looking at the floor, and then produced a roll of parchment from a pocket. He took a step toward Selmy, extending it toward the captain of the Kingsguard.

"Ser Barristan, I believe no man here could ever question your honor," Stark said. Selmy took the parchment, his brow furrowing in confusion.

"King Robert's seal, unbroken," he said clearly. Without preamble, the old man broke the seal and unfurled the scroll.

" _Lord Eddard Stark is herein named Protector of the Realm to rule as regent until the heir come of age."_

Sandor felt that storm of disquiet spiral into a hurricane. He could imagine no circumstance in which the queen would allow Eddard Stark to become, for all intents and purposes, the king while her son grew to his majority. The Lannisters would not take kindly to Stark being named regent over herself or even her father.

"May I see that letter, Ser Barristan?" she asked, her voice melodious.

 _She's fucking enjoying this_ , he thought warily.

"Protector of the Realm?" she queried. "Is this meant to be your shield, Lord Stark? A piece of paper?"

With graceful movements, the queen took the parchment between the thumb and forefinger of each hand and slowly tore it down the middle once, then again, and then again for good measure. With an outward fling of her fingers, she let the pieces flutter to the floor as the room looked on.

"Those were the king's words," Selmy said, and Sandor nearly groaned.

"We have a new king now," the queen said, a smirk twisting her lips. She folded her hands and took a step toward the edge of the dais, her green eyes fixed on Stark. "Lord Eddard, when we last spoke you offered me some counsel. Allow me to return to courtesy. Bend the knee my lord, bend the knee and swear fealty to my son and we shall allow you to live out the rest of your days in the gray waste you call home."

Sandor heard the latent threat even as he turned his eyes again to watch Stark.

"Your son has no claim to the throne," Lord Eddard said levelly, carefully enunciating each syllable. Sandor wanted to shout at him to leave off.

"Liar!" cried Joffrey, spittle flying as his voice cracked.

"You condemn yourself with your own mouth, Lord Stark," the queen replied, her eyes narrowing in pleasure. "Ser Barristan, seize this traitor."

Selmy looked conflicted for a fraction of instant, then he set his jaw and approached Stark. As he did so, Stark's men went to draw their swords.

"Ser Barristan is a good man, a loyal man, do him no harm," Stark ordered.

"You think he stands alone?" the queen asked, her eyes meeting Sandor's. He did not hesitate, drawing his own sword and holding it ready.

"Kill him, kill all of them, I command it!" Joffrey screamed.

"Commander, take the queen and her children into custody. Escort them back to their royal apartments and keep them there under guard."

"Men of the watch," the gold-cloak captain said, and immediately the city guards took a defensive position around Stark's band.

"I want no bloodshed," Stark continued. "Tell your men to lay down their swords. No one needs to die."

For a tense moment, no one moved, simply watched and listened.

"Now!" someone cried. Sandor wasn't sure who it was, but the effect was immediate. Instead of attacking the Lannister guards, the city watch surged forward, spears thrust into the unsuspecting backs of Ned Stark's own men.

 _Didn't see that coming_ , Sandor thought warily.

One of Stark's guards surged forward in the direction of Joffrey, and Sandor didn't hesitate. He took the man down with a slash across the belly, running another through who had come to the aid of the first.

The scuffle was brief, the combined force of the Kingsguard, the Lannister guard, and the City Watch destroying Ned Stark's band in less than a minute. When it was over, Stark stood still in the middle of the floor, his hands raised in surrender as Petyr Baelish held a dagger to his throat.

"My daughters," Stark croaked.

"No harm will come to your children, Lord Stark," the queen said. Sandor didn't believe her for a second.

"Take him to the Black Cells," Joffrey said eagerly. Ser Barristan and Meryn Trant stepped forward to flank Stark on either side. Ned Stark looked at them both in disbelief, but he followed them without further fight.

"Raid the household," the king said. "Leave none of his folk alive."

"My king-" the queen began.

Joffrey rolled his eyes. "Fine. Lock the little sluts up in their rooms. Kill the rest."

The king rose, sweeping out of the throne room with a smirk on ferret-like face.

Preston Greenwood stayed with the king, but Sandor knew he was to go with the others to the Tower of the Hand. He could think of nothing but getting to Lenna first. She spent mornings with Sansa Stark. He groaned to realize that she'd be there now.

"Hound," the queen called. He spun on his heel.

"Lady Helenna. She'll be with the Stark girl. Bring her to me. Immediately."

Sandor didn't like being grateful to Cersei, but he dipped his head and loped off as fast as he could, trying to head the raiding party off before they reached the Tower.

He took the steps three at a time, grabbing a servant and demanding to know where Lady Sansa was. The frightened girl shook violently, but managed to point in the direction of the Stark girl's rooms.

He threw open the door, startling them both. Lenna was on her feet in an instant.

"Lady Helenna," he bit out. "The queen wishes you to come with me."

She looked to him, startled, her eyes widening when she saw him arrayed in his plate and helm.

"San-Clegane," she replied. "Whatever is the matter."

"There is no time, you must come now. Lady Sansa, bar your door."

"Surely, I can-" Lenna protested, clearly wanting to stay with the girl.

"You are to come with me. Now," he repeated, almost bellowing. Lenna dropped her embroidery hoop and crossed the room.

"Do as he says, Sansa," she whispered. The Stark girl had gone completely white where she sat. "Come now."

The girl followed them to door, and Sandor was relieved to hear the tell-tale thunk of the bar as it dropped into place.

"What-" she began, looking up into his face.

"There is no time to explain," he replied. He could already hear the sound of steel clashing in the yard below. "I have to get you out of here."

He grabbed her roughly by the elbow, pulling her down the stairs behind him. He could only focus on keeping her out of harm's way. He didn't hesitate to draw his sword when a Stark guard came barreling toward them. Lenna didn't shriek, but she did jump as he ran the man through. The guard was still writhing on the stairs when he pulled Lenna roughly over him as he fought their way out.

There was nothing for it. He kept her beside him and behind him as they made their way through the thick fighting of the courtyard. Several Stark men recognized him as they went, trying to engage him only to find themselves laying in the warm pool of their own blood. The battle-fury rose in his veins, and he hardly thought about what he was doing, but he kept her close, peripherally aware of his purpose even as he cut the other men down without hesitation or preamble.

By the time they made it back into the Holdfast, Lenna was looking wan and pale. The front of her gown was spattered with gore.

"What is going on?" she demanded, her voice stronger than he expected.

"Lord Stark has been arrested for treason," he said flatly. He used his cloak to wipe the blood from his sword. Lenna visibly gulped.

"Oh gods, the girls-"

"No," he said forcefully, sheathing his sword and grasping her by the shoulders. "You are to say nothing about them. Don't try to go to them. They will be safe."

"But they must be so afraid," she said. He wondered if she was talking more about herself than the Stark girls.

He grunted, pulling her along, this time with her hand in his. His heart was beating violently, a combination of the thrill of fighting and the remains of the devastating fear that she would be hurt, or worse, killed in that raid.

"Where are we going?"

"The queen asked me to fetch you."

She nodded. He pulled her to him and kissed her roughly.

"Do what she says, say what she wants to hear. Do you understand me?"

"Of course, Sandor," she said quietly.

He deposited her with Cersei in her study, the little princess sitting at her table as if completely unaware of what was going on.

 _She probably is_ , he thought darkly.

"Thank you, Clegane," the queen said, ushering Lenna into her chambers. Then she levelled her beryl-bright eyes at him. "Do your duty."

He nodded curtly, whirling on his heel to return to the Tower and do what he did best.

It was past midnight when he went to look for her. He knew she wouldn't be daft enough to go to the library that night, but he checked anyway, relieved to find the cavernous room completely dark. He went to her room as quietly as he could, softening his step and rapping just once.

She opened the door and he didn't hesitate to cross the threshold.

"Sandor," she breathed, quickly shutting and barring her door behind him. "What is going on?"

"Are you well?" he demanded, his hands on her shoulders. He was still in his armor, blood-stained and dirty, helm still on.

"Aye, as well as I can be," she replied. He nodded in return, dragging his helm off and running a hand through his sweaty hair. "Sandor, please. Tell me what is happening."

He shut his eyes briefly against the note of pleading in his voice.

"I told you already. Lord Stark has been arrested and taken to the Black Cells on charges of treason."

"What? That doesn't make sense, he's the Hand-" she protested, her voice rising with each word.

"Not anymore," he said brutally. "He was Hand to King Robert. We have a new king now."

Lenna went still, looking at him as if trying to figure out what he thought about the whole affair. The truth was he didn't rightly know. On the one hand, Joffrey was king. On the other, Ned Stark was no traitor. He knew the rumors, had even believed them, but it didn't matter now. Joffrey was the undisputed heir to the Iron Throne, owned by King Robert as his own son, and to try and say anything different would result in bloodshed.

 _It already has._

"What charges could they bring against Lord Stark?" she asked quietly, her eyes dark in the lamplight of her room.

"He claims that Joffrey isn't the rightful heir, that the throne should instead go to King Robert's brother." He fought himself about telling her, but decided in the end she would hear it anyway. Better from him than someone else.

"Renly?" she asked, her brows furrowing incredulously.

"Stannis," he replied.

She shook her head.

"But how could Joffrey not be the heir? He's Robert's son-"

Sandor looked at her flatly. He saw realization spread across her features, followed quickly by disbelief.

"How could Lord Stark possibly think that the queen would do such a thing?"

Sandor didn't answer, preferring her naivete to the truth. It would do her better to believe the queen incapable of adultery, to believe that Joffrey was the heir whether she liked him or not. He knew better, he knew that the queen and her handsome twin were closer than brothers and sisters should be. He still did not want to sully her ears with such.

"He must have had his reasons," he said lowly.

"What do you think?" she asked sharply.

He thought about his answer carefully, turning it over in his mind as he looked at her.

"I think that it doesn't matter one way or the other. Joffrey is the king, and nothing is going to change that. And since he is the king, I am his servant."

"Just as I am," she spat.

"Aye," he replied harshly. "I am glad you remember it."

She looked at him with narrowed eyes, almost like she was angry with him. A spark of ire lit in his blood. _This is no time for foolish ideas of virtue_.

"What do I do then?" she asked dully, her jaw tight and her teeth clenched.

"What you have always done," he replied, taking care to soften his tone. He took two steps toward her and slid his hand into hers. "Bear up and do your duty."

She seemed to grow two inches at those words, straightening her spine and setting her shoulders in much the same way he'd watched her do the first time he'd seen her. That had been a much more innocent time, and there was a determination in her jaw and in the way her eyes looked steadily into his that she hadn't needed before. Lady Helenna Manderly looked back at him, her face becoming a mask. He did not like having that carefully blank expression turned on him.

"How long?" she asked quietly.

"What?" he asked, confused.

"Until the war comes," she replied evenly. "How long?"

"I don't know," he replied. "Soon. Very soon."

She walked to her desk and sat down purposefully. If he didn't know better, he would think she was just about to go over daily accounts, or perhaps write a letter for a friend. In the circumstances, however, his stomach plummeted into his boots.

"This must go to White Harbor," she said, drawing out a piece of paper and dipping her quill in the inkpot.

"Lenna, it is too risky."

"If you will not carry it, I shall," she replied. He wanted to believe it was a bluff, but the Helenna Manderly that held the pen, her fingers livid white against raven's feather, this woman was full of a terrible rage. There was no telling what she might do.

She looked up at him, the lines of her face severe. Suddenly, she looked very tired, her face crumpling though no tears came.

"Sandor," she whispered. "I'll probably never see them again. Am I not allowed to at least say goodbye?"

His heart thumped painfully in his chest. It had been a great risk years ago, but now it was even greater.

 _You will deny her nothing_.

"I'll come back," he conceded. If he could get it out tonight, before too much notice was taken by the people, before news of Stark's arrest spread, it would not attract too much attention. It was risky, but it was possible.

"Stay," she said, not looking up from her paper.

"Lenna-"

"Stay. Please," she said, her voice so miserable he couldn't in good conscience leave her. The Keep had quieted, and if he made his way to the alehouses after this errand, no one would be the wiser.

He nodded, looking around for a place to sit, settling on the sturdy chest at the foot of her bed. He refused to sit on the bed itself.

For a long while was nothing but the sound of her pen as it scratched across the paper. He was surprised that she didn't cry, not even sniffling as she wrote. At last she finished, folding the papers together, beginning to melt the red wax to seal it. She hesitated, then handed the papers to him.

One was to her nieces, another to her brothers. The last was to her father.

 _Dearest Papa,_

 _The months since I saw you in Winterfell had dragged by. I have missed you all so terribly, and know I will only miss you more as time goes on. I am so grateful that we had our time together in White Harbor those years ago, and in Winterfell, and it is comfort to know that we were able to be as we had been when I was young. I have so many fond memories of you, of home, of our family._

 _This letter will worry you, and I am sorry for it. I mean nothing by it, only to say that I am thinking of you all. I assure you I am in good health and am well looked after. You know I have dear friends here in King's Landing, and they will see me through. I keep you all in my prayers._

 _Love,_

 _Lenna_

"Have I included anything objectionable?" she asked unemotionally.

"No," he replied. "But they will know."

"Aye," she said, turning to look at him. Her eyes were full, but not with tears. "We Manderlys are an intuitive lot. They'll know as soon as they arrive that something is afoot."

"Always saw through me," he replied.

Lenna furrowed her brow and he sighed.

"I'm convinced that your niece knew that I-"

"She did," Lenna said, a small smile lighting her eyes. Just as quickly it was extinguished. "She told me the most alarming thing, that first night in White Harbor."

"What?" he breathed.

"That you would die for me." Her voice was near a whisper, and from the look on her face he'd wager she was figuring something out, something he didn't really want her to know.

"Aye."

"And what is more," she said, pausing. "That you would hand the knife to me and hold still while I killed you myself."

He gulped. She looked at him slowly, and he knew that she was fully aware of just how much risk he would take on to do what she wanted. How much power she had over him.

"Sandor," she said, and it was a little cry instead of a word. "Tell me that isn't true. That you wouldn't lay down your life-"

"I can't," he grumbled. "I can't do that."

She took three steps and seized the parchments from his hands, flinging them into her fireplace. When she turned, he saw anger in her face, but when she came to him she threw her arms around his chest and buried her nose in his throat.

"Why did you-"

"It would have been a knife, wouldn't it? I could have killed you with it. Stupid pieces of paper, a girl's fancy. And you'd have done it, damn you."

He smiled when her little hand thumped on his chest. _Aye, I'd have done it_. He brought a hand up to the back of her head, marvelling at the delicacy of her skull beneath the thick hair. _Such a fragile thing_ , he thought, _such a powerful, fragile thing._

She backed away from him and he looked down on her warily. There was a ferocity in her eyes that he hadn't seen before. She took two steps from him and barred the door. When she came back to him, her little fingers began to work loose the straps of his armor.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Forgetting," she replied.

He let her go about her task, removing his plate piece by piece until it was piled on the floor and leaving him in his tunic and trousers. He stood there stupidly as she ran her hands over his shoulders, his chest, her fingers tugging the hem of his shirt to indicate he should take it off. His breathing had become labored and he was painfully aware that he was straining against his trousers, but he made no moves of his own. He did as she wished him to, sitting heavily on the end of her bed when she pushed him in that direction.

She came to stand between his legs, and he looked up at her in bemusement. She ducked her head and caught his mouth in hers, and he groaned when her tongue pushed beyond his lips. Her hands were in his hair, tugging at it the way he liked, and then they were trailing along his arms, down his ribs and across his abdomen. He gasped when they suddenly cupped him through his trousers, and he seized her wrists.

"No," she said lowly. "I'm going to do for you what you do for me, Sandor Clegane. And you're not going to stop me this time."

"Lenna, you don't have to-"

"I want to," she said fiercely. "Don't you understand, Sandor? All that you would do for me, I would do for you in return."

"I don't want your gratitude," he said flatly, his nostrils flaring, insult like salt in his blood.

She kissed him hard. "I'm not quite sure what you think gratitude is," she said with a smirk. "But this isn't it."

He groaned when she placed his hand on her breast, pushing herself against him.

"I must be extremely selfish if this is my way of showing gratitude," she teased, her own fingers loosening the ties of her gown and letting it fall open. His head buried itself against her chest, his tongue playing over the thin material of her chemise. She mewed when he found her nipple, his fingers coming up to tweak the other.

His hands became more demanding, trying to pull her down beside him. He was all too aware of how dangerous it would be to have her next to him in a bed, but he wasn't thinking all that clearly.

"No, love," she said quietly. His heart ricocheted painfully against his ribs at the endearment. He thought for a moment that she was rejecting him, but it quickly became apparent that she was doing no such thing. She started by kissing him again, then trailed her lips across his jaw and down his neck as he did so often to her. It thrilled him, the way she was taking control, just as she had done those few times in the library when he had forced his hands to stay still against the ledge. She encouraged him to touch her, but she made sure he understood that her focus was him, not on the pleasure he could give her. Each time he made to move to that part of her, she drew away. It must have been for him just as it had been each time he had pushed her away all those months.

He stood suddenly, and it threw her a little off balance. His hands went to the tie of her chemise, pulling it free and baring her breasts. He ran his fingers over the sensitive flesh, growling to hear her whimpers.

"Take down your hair," he said, more a demand than a request.

She took a step away from him, the chemise falling to one side, gaping open almost to her navel. She smiled at him.

He watched in rapt attention as she uncoiled the thick rope of hair from around her head, pulling the pins out one by one. She left them in a neat pile on her desk, stepping toward him again and turning her back to him.

He wondered how she knew, but he didn't care. He ran his fingers through the braid, separating out the strands until it hung about her in a loose curtain. It clung to his fingers warmly, and he could have stood there and touched it for hours, but she turned to him again. He missed her fingers undoing the drawstring of his trousers, and he sucked in a breath when they fell to the floor.

She stepped back with a wicked little smirk on her lips that inflamed him. He watched as her eyes flicked down his haunches, his thighs and calves, coming at last to rest between his legs. He felt himself twitch under her scrutiny, a flash of pride at the slightly stunned look on her face. Sandor knew he had nothing to be ashamed of when it came to that part of himself.

"Well?" he rumbled, and she looked up at him. He stayed standing with his hands fisted at his sides, looking down on her with an eyebrow cocked.

She raised her own in return, turning her attention back to him as she hesitantly ran a finger along his length. He hissed.

"Does that hurt?" she asked. There was no concern in her voice, he noted with amusement, just curiosity.

"Not exactly," he replied, his jaw clenched.

She did it again, and his hips flexed forward, his cock twitching. Suddenly, she wrapped her whole hand around it, fingers barely meeting around the girth.

"What should I do?" she asked, the barest hint of embarrassment coloring her cheeks.

He couldn't speak, and he thought if he was grew any more tense he might snap entirely. He wrapped a hand around hers and showed her how to move against him. She mimicked his movements, and he couldn't stop the sounds that poured from his throat, colorful expletives sprinkled liberally with her name. His hands raised to her shoulders, bringing her back toward the bed with him.

He sat down heavily, her hands still on him, groping behind for a pillow. He threw it on the floor between his knees. She smirked at him, but before he knew, she was kneeling in front of him.

She smiled up at him as she continued to touch him. He watched her as she inspected his length, his width, the pearly bead of white at the tip. Time seemed to stand still as she looked at it. Curiously, she ducked her head and flicked her tongue out to taste it.

"Fuck," he rasped, and it was nearly a shout.

She did it again, covering him with her mouth as she continued to stroke him. He thought he would die that very moment, and happily. He'd thought about this, of course, but he never imagined that she would actually take him in her mouth like that.

"Lenna, you don't-oh gods," he growled, his hands pressing into her hair as his hips shot forward and he convulsed. He didn't last long, spilling himself like a green youth against the back of her throat. It was the most delicious thing he'd ever felt, and his vision went white as he let out a shuddering groan.

His hands relaxed on her and she released him, wiping the back of her hand across her mouth. He looked down on her feeling forlorn, disappointed in himself.

"I'm sorry," he said hurriedly, seeing the confusion in her face.

"For what? Did I do something wrong?"

He barked out a hard laugh. "No. No, you did nothing wrong, it's just-"

"What then?"

"I wouldn't expect a lady to-"

She quirked an eyebrow at him, looking down at herself.

"Did you like it?" she asked.

"Fuck yes," he responded guilelessly. She smiled widely, and he returned it.

"And if I want to do it again?"

He darted his eyes at her, pleased to see a playful glint in her expression.

"You'll have no objections from me," he replied.

He knew he shouldn't stay, but he couldn't resist pulling her to him as he leaned against her headboard for just a little while. Her hands were still roving, playing in the hair of his chest, tracing the ridges of scar that crisscrossed his torso and arms.

He thought back on their earlier conversation, about how Wynna had seen right through him. Wyman Manderly's words to him in the courtyard at White Harbor had been swirling around in his head since Robert Baratheon had slipped that piece of parchment into his hands. Until that moment, he had refused to entertain the notion that Manderly had meant _that_. He felt undeserving. But not that he had his own lands, a keep to offer, the Lord of White Harbor's promise had lit a beacon of hope in his breast even as they prepared for war. He had labored or whether or not to tell her, to know what she thought about that exchange he'd had with her father. He decided that he wanted to know. He hadn't intended to bring it up, not yet, but after seeing her spattered with blood that afternoon, there was an urgency to the conversation that he could not deny.

He drew a deep breath and gathered his courage.

"Wynna wasn't the only one," he said softly.

She stirred against him, leaning up on her arm to look him in the face.

"What do you mean?"

"She wasn't the only one who saw that I- and you-"

She raised her eyebrows at him in question.

"That day we left," he said, refusing to look at her, instead focusing on window beyond her shoulder. "Your father said something to me in the courtyard."

"Aye, I remember. I'd often wondered what he'd said."

He was slightly stunned by this, wondering what she had thought had happened, but he gathered himself quickly.

"He told me-" he began.

"Yes?"

"Let me fucking finish?" he retorted with a smirk, looking down at her. "He told me that if I could make sure you were safe through whatever it was that he would give me anything I asked for that he could give."

Lenna went incredibly still at that.

"Sandor," she said lowly. "You know that he meant-"

"Did he?"

"Yes," she replied in a whisper. "Yes, he did."

Sandor looked at her slowly. Her eyes were large, the dark green liquid in the firelight. He didn't exactly regret bringing it up, but neither did he know what to say.

"Then I'll have to keep you safe, won't I?" he said at last, settling for deflection.

She smiled at him lopsidedly, leaning up to kiss him again, and he looked at her again he saw his own hope reflected in her face.

A/N: I'm the worst about pacing these things. If I get a chapter out and I'm satisfied with it, I can't wait to post it. Let me just tell you, these kids are doing weird things now. I think I may have lost control over them. I think I know how a chapter is going to go, but nope. Honestly, it's pretty fun.

Thank you, as always, for all of your kind words! Especially those of your who wouldn't normally comment- Guest, I'm looking at you...you aren't one of *those* people any more! Just know that your words are valuable to me, and your ideas help my ideas have ideas, if that makes sense. I'm getting more used to the "pushing T" bits, as well. Thanks for giving me courage. If we thought the first 28 (wtf?!) chapters were a roller-coaster, things are about to get much bumpier. That's not a spoiler, because we all know what's going to happen...right?

Looking at about another week before the next bit goes up. Forgive any and all typos. Each one mortifies me, and I'm going to go through and fix them eventually. Again, please read and review!


	29. Chapter 29

Lenna XXIX

He snuck out of her room well before dawn, reluctantly strapping on his armor again. She stood and watched, noting how endearingly self-conscious he was as his fingers fumbled with the straps, but too enchanted by the sight of him in her chambers to be of much help. He'd never crossed into her rooms before, and now that he was here she didn't want him to leave. She wished that he'd stayed despite knowing he was right to worry about what could happen if they were found out. She was feeling reckless, though, her patience for the courtly games strained in the face of looming war.

 _The storm_.

She had barely had a chance to think about all that had happened the day before. She'd had no idea when she'd woken up the previous morning that the world would be lopsided before nightfall. She berated herself for her folly in believing that things couldn't get worse, now seeing the misery of the previous years as a privilege rather than a curse. She had been kept from her family, yes, and she and Sandor were in a difficult position, that was true, but a war- a war was so much worse.

When he'd burst into Sansa Stark's room the day before she'd been terrified, her legs liquefying as it took all of her determination not to sink into a swoon. It had taken her a full five seconds to realize that it was Sandor who had thrown open the door and barked at her to follow, and even when she recognized him, her brain was a muddy haze that could not comprehend why he could possibly be there. His helm had been up, the visor down, and she could barely make out his grey eyes in the depths of shadow. Those eyes had been wide with something like fear, and she had faltered, wasting precious time.

When he'd thrown his visor up, the look on his face made her tremble. He hadn't needed to tell her that things would go badly for her if she stayed with Sansa Stark. In a moment of weakness, she hadn't cared what would befall the girl, and could only do as he compelled her. When the girl had closed the door behind her and Sandor had taken her by the elbow, she followed him dumbly, stumbling over her own feet like a dullard. She felt like she was in a dream as she watched him draw his sword, some horrible nightmare, the blade scraping harshly against the scabbard. She watched in a daze as he struck the man careening toward them, a scarlet arc of his blood flying through the air. Lenna swore she could count the individual droplets, they seemed to slow as they travelled toward her, landing against her skirts like a graceful sweep of ink on parchment. She barely registered the gasps and gurgles of the dying man as he lay on the stone stairs of the castle, Sandor dragging her over the prone form, leaving the poor man to die alone as she gaped.

He kept her behind him, one gauntleted hand on her wrist as he fought through the courtyard. It didn't seem real, and when they emerged into the comparative quiet of the Holdfast, she could not wrap her brain around what had just happened. She felt blurry and disoriented, raising a hand to her head and finding it difficult to focus her eyes.

Sandor peered down into her face, his eyes as hard as the grip he kept on her upper arm, fingers digging into her flesh and providing a counterpoint to her hazy confusion. She concentrated on them, on their cool color, and felt her sense of self come rushing back like the thundering of a thousand wings.

"What is going on?" she asked, grasping his elbow to keep from stumbling. It felt like a gasping for air, like she'd just escaped an undertow and was desperate for a breath.

"Lord Stark has been arrested for treason," he replied flatly. He was still holding his sword. It was crimson with blood.

"Oh gods, the girls-" she choked, her eyes turning in horror back to the Tower of the Hand. She could hear the sounds of blades ringing against each other, clear as bells. _I should have stayed_ , she thought frantically, hardly remembering her fright as she fled from Sansa, leaving the girl to face her fate alone.

"No," he said forcefully, reading her face and spinning her to him. "Don't try to go to them. They will be safe."

She searched his face, wondering how they could possibly be safe as their father's men were slaughtered around them like pigs or sheep, their blood running in rivulets between the cobblestones. Sansa would be terrified.

"But they must be so afraid," she said.

At first she thought it was fear that kept her trembling, but then she was startled to realize that she was not afraid. Instead, she was angry, and it was rising like a firestorm.

Sandor gentled his grip and they started moving deeper into the Holdfast.

"Where are we going?"

"The queen asked me to fetch you," he replied. She nodded, realizing that in whatever moment the decision had been made to raid Ned Stark's household, the queen had thought of her. Had saved her. No wonder he'd looked so ferocious when he'd thrown open that doorway, shepherding her out through the melee. If he hadn't, Lenna had no doubt that she'd be lying in a pool of her own blood, just like the Stark guard he'd killed in the stairway, spluttering and dying without understanding why.

His thoughts must have been travelling along a similar path. Sandor stopped abruptly and pulled her to him right there in the passageway, his mouth landing on hers with bruising force. It wasn't gentle, it was desperate, like he was assuring himself that he had, in fact, gotten her out of the Tower alive. His eyes were intense as he looked down at her, unblinking as the battle-rage still strained his face, but there was something else there as well. Fear.

"Do what she says, say what she wants to hear. Do you understand me?"

"Of course, Sandor," she replied. She always did. Lenna Manderly was quite adept at being what Cersei Lannister wanted her to be. He let out a harsh breath and nodded, his hand hesitating around her shoulder like he wanted to touch her face but thought the better of it.

The queen was sitting at her ease in her solar, the room full of eerily silent courtiers. Sandor left her at the door, and she knew where he was heading: back into the fray. It didn't turn her stomach they way she would have expected it to. The idea of Sandor continuing his work, cutting down her fellow Northmen, did not bother her. The possibility that he might come to some harm did. She felt a piece of herself slip away like cinders in night air.

The queen beckoned her over and Lenna took a seat on a cushion at her feet without hesitation.

"Dear Lenna," the queen said, a radiant smile on her face. Lenna forced herself to return it, knowing that Cersei was watching her face for any reaction. "I am so glad you are with us now. Will you not sing?"

"Of course, your grace," she replied. She didn't even bother to ask what the queen wanted to hear. She began _Castamere_.

When she did finally make it back to her own rooms late that night, Lenna stood in the middle of the floor for a long moment feeling completely unmoored. She wanted to cry, but no tears rose in her throat and her eyes remained dry as stones. Instead, there was something else burning in her belly, like the embers of a long-burned out fire, still scorching and treacherous. Fury. She stood by the window and looked out over the water for a long while, that feeling gradually subsiding, but she knew that it was still lingering in her gut, waiting to be stoked back to flame.

The sharp rap and the scrape of boots at her door did not take her by surprise. It did shock her when he crossed the threshold into her room. He'd left her at the door so many times, refusing time and again to enter, but in two strides he was in and she barred the door.

"Sandor," she said lowly. "What is going on?"

The queen had refused to address the events of the day, pretending like it was just an ordinary day. Her entire court had a good idea of what was going on, but no one spoke, everyone too terrified of angering her. Of knowing the truth.

Sandor pressed his lips together in reticence.

"Are you well?" he deflected, putting his hands on her shoulders. He still had his gauntlets on, and she looked at him carefully, taking in the smears of blood on his armor, the streaks of grit under his eyes.

"Aye, as well as I can be," she replied. He nodded grimly, removing his helm. His hair was limp with sweat as he dragged a hand through it. "Sandor, please. Tell me what is happening."

He told her little at first. She had heard the whisperings in the solar, had guessed exactly what was going on. She understood the _what_ completely, it was the _why_ that left her at a loss.

"What charges could they bring against Lord Stark?" she asked. Sandor sighed.

"He claims that Joffrey isn't the rightful heir, that the throne should instead go to King Robert's brother."

"Renly?" she asked, incredulous.

"Stannis."

His response did nothing to assuage her confusion. If anything, it heightened it.

"But how could Joffrey not be the heir? He's Robert's son-"

Sandor's lack of response spoke more eloquently than a lengthy explication could. The very idea that Joffrey wasn't Robert's son was incomprehensible.

"How could Lord Stark possibly think that the queen would do such a thing?" she burst out, her gut rejecting the idea out of hand. Cersei was many things, but she wasn't an adulteress, was she? Lenna thought back through all of her interactions with the queen, how Sandor had insisted that she was the queen's _friend_. She was as close to her as any, if she was committing adultery, surely Lenna would know. The queen kept herself to herself, except for Lenna and her brother.

 _Oh gods_ , she thought suddenly, an inkling of a suspicion entering her mind before she swiftly shoved it away.

"He must have had his reasons," Sandor said quietly, his voice carefully neutral. His manner only confirmed what she had been thinking, but she wanted to hear it from him, for him to tell her that she wasn't just thinking lewd, vile, treasonous thoughts.

"What do you think?" she asked abruptly, desperate to hear his perspective, to put to ground the terrible idea of Cersei and her handsome brother.

"I think that it doesn't matter one way or the other," he replied, his gray eyes steady and full of good sense. It did not comfort her, if that was his intent. "Joffrey is the king, and nothing is going to change that. And since he is the king, I am his servant."

"Just as I am," she spat.

"Aye. I am glad you remember it." There was steel in his voice and his eyes. She knew there was much he wasn't saying, that damnable honor of his preventing him from passing on information he felt might compromise her.

She felt trapped, suddenly wishing she had taken Lord Stark's offer and fled North with or without his girls in tow.

"What do I do then?"

"What you have always done," he replied. He crossed to her and took her hand in his. She hated the way the gauntlet felt, hard and sharp, not at all comforting. His armor only served to remind her of what they were at any given moment in the Red Keep, partial versions of themselves. She couldn't look at him.

"Bear up and do your duty," he murmured, his eyes soft again.

Her mother's words in his mouth made her stand up straighter. She thought of her beautiful mother, wishing as she had thousands of times for just one more chance to talk of her. To know what she knew of the Lannisters, what she had learned and what she would do in Lenna's situation. She had often wondered what Adalyn Locke had done, had seen, in her time with Joanna Lannister, and how she would conduct herself now when the stakes had been exponentially raised.

Lenna was quite sure in that moment that she would never see her family again.

It was rash of her to think that she could get a letter out of King's Landing, but she sat down and began scribbling, hardly aware of Sandor as he sat awkwardly on the chest at the end of her bed. Words flowed, words of love, of caution, of advice to her nieces. Words of affection for her brothers. Words of gratitude for her father. Words that there would never be enough time to say.

She handed the letters to Sandor when she was finished and watched him read them.

"Have I included anything objectionable?" she asked, surprised at her own lack of emotion. She felt peculiarly detached, as if the letters were just one of her long, tedious translations instead of the last letters she would ever write to her family.

"No," he replied softly. "But they will know."

"Aye," she said, a hot wave of love for them all splashing past the barrier she didn't remember building. "We Manderlys are an intuitive lot. They'll know as soon as they arrive that something is afoot."

"Always saw through me." His voice was no more than a whisper. She wondered what he meant. "I'm convinced that your niece knew that I-"

Lenna recalled Wynna's impertinent questions they night they arrived in White Harbor, demanding to know if the Hound was in love with her, or she with him, all of her unmaidenly words about climbing trees and the way he looked at her.

"She did," Lenna said, at first amused by the memory despite the circumstances, but then remembering something else the girl had said with sobering clarity. She looked at the papers in his hands as if they were snakes. "She told me the most alarming thing, that first night in White Harbor."

"What?"

"That you would die for me." She didn't want to say it, and it escaped as a whisper. She had known on some level that it was true, and that it had always been true. After all, Sandor was a guard, and it was his job to protect the royal family. Somehow she had gotten lumped into that charge, too. But it was more than just the mere doing of duty that her niece had meant. Sandor Clegane would rush headlong into a fire for her if she asked it, no questions asked.

"Aye." She knew he was looking at her, but she couldn't look at his face, not right then, realization and reckoning tearing through her.

"And what is more," she continued hesitantly, floundering. Wynna's exact turn of phrase hit her like an arrow in her chest. She'd found the idea almost romantic when her niece had said it, and it had made her catch her breath to think of that kind of devotion. Now it was sharp and cutting. "That you would hand the knife to me and hold still while I killed you myself."

He didn't reply, and his silence told her everything she needed to know. It wasn't about duty, about some vow he'd made years before. It might have started that way in the beginning, but it had grown into something more grim. Sandor Clegane wouldn't just die for her, he'd sacrifice himself for her. In the past, she hadn't seen a difference, but now, looking at that sheaf of papers in his hands, remembering how insistent she had been just an hour before that they reach her family regardless of the consequences, she saw that he wouldn't deny her wishes if he could, even if it meant his head on a spike for his trouble. _For words_. _For you._

"Sandor. Tell me that isn't true. That you wouldn't lay down your life-"

"I can't," he murmured. "I can't do that."

Without another thought, she grabbed the letters and thrust them into the fire. She was furious. Furious at him, the queen, the war, and, most of all, herself.

"Why did you-"

"It would have been a knife, wouldn't it? I could have killed you with it. Stupid pieces of paper, a girl's fancy. And you'd have done it, damn you."

She had thrown herself against his chest, and in another time she might have cried, but Helenna Manderly had no tears left. Her fury did not abate as she ran her fingers into his hair, but recklessness rose in her blood. She pressed herself against him, heedless of his filthy plate. She felt his hands rest against her hair, cradling her head, and she felt terribly, horrendously ashamed.

Ashamed that she hadn't seen that devotion for what it was, ashamed that she hadn't realized that he would put aside his own good judgment to please her, to serve her. Ashamed that she had even asked him to do something so daft and rash and dangerous to begin with, not even thinking of the consequences beyond her own selfishness. It made her fierce to realize that Sandor Clegane would gladly bleed and die for her, truly her thrall, and when she backed away from him, she wasn't quite sure what she was doing.

She only knew that she was not going to let him put her off this time. Her Sandor didn't put much stock in words, she saw the disbelief in his face when she spoke her feelings to him, an expression of patience and tolerance rather than any true acknowledgement that he accepted what she was saying. He didn't believe himself deserving of those feelings, though he overwhelmed her with his own. Other men might have said the right words, have smiled and doted on her and wooed her, but not Sandor. No pretty speeches from him. The strength and warmth of his hands on her, his slavish devotion to her pleasure and her safety and her comfort, even when it meant risking his own, spoke volumes more than silvery words and affirmations.

She could have told him that she loved him again, and he would have half-smiled and half-replied. He had never been able to say the word aloud, the expression of a frightened rabbit in his eyes whenever he attempted it. She got the distinct impression that he was humoring her, that he didn't actually believe her when she said it, rather that he believed that she believed she loved him. But words would not suffice now, and if he wouldn't listen to her words, damn it, he was going to understand by some other means.

She wasn't ashamed of what she did then, in fact, she was terribly proud of doing that to him. He was taken aback when she started to remove his plate, dropping it piece by piece on her floor with an efficiency better suited to a training-yard than a bedroom. She felt oddly businesslike as she divested him of it, enjoying the idea of stripping away the Hound and exposing Sandor again. He hadn't been himself since he'd come into her room, some strange and unwieldy combination of his two personas.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

She smirked, though he couldn't see her.

"Forgetting," she replied, remembering the ways he'd made her forget in the past, thrilled when he shuddered a little at her use of his own words.

When she'd removed the plate and he'd taken off his tunic, she pushed him to sit on the edge of her bed. She wanted to push him all the way back, to climb on top of him, but it was a selfish impulse. He spent so much of their time together focusing only on her. She'd do the same for him by making him shudder and groan, his hands burying in her hair as her own roamed as they always wanted to, unencumbered by his plate and tunic. His skin was warm, his chest heaving, his fingers digging into her mattress as she kissed him.

She was still a little embarrassed by the tenting in his trousers, but she was angry enough, bold enough, that she slid her hands down his thighs and grasped him there. It startled him and he gasped, grabbing at her hands.

"No," she said with determination. "I'm going to do for you what you do for me, Sandor Clegane. And you're not going to stop me this time."

"Lenna, you don't have to-" he protested, shaking his head.

"I want to," she replied, furrowing her brow. He was being deliberately obtuse. "Don't you understand, Sandor? All that you would do for me, I would do for you in return."

"I don't want your gratitude," he said, his eyes dull until they flashed away from hers.

She cursed the people who had made him this way, so disbelieving that he deserved to be loved, to be wanted. And she cursed herself for not attending to him for so long, for allowing him to go on believing it, for not showering him with as much attention as he gave her.

"I'm not quite sure what you think gratitude is," she whispered. "But this isn't it." She turned her hand over and seized his, placing it on her breast. She was fairly sure he could feel her heartbeat. "I must be extremely selfish if this is my way of showing gratitude."

She'd undone her gown and he'd succumbed, trying his damndest to turn his attention to her with hands and mouth, but she'd steadfastly deterred him, just as he had deterred her for months. When she called him love, he had frozen like a stunned stag, his eyes wide until she continued her ministrations, his hands and mouth becoming more and more demanding.

He'd made her take her hair down, and it might have been the most deliriously sensuous thing he'd ever done, watching her ravenously as she drew the pins out, running his hands through as he disentangled the braid, pressing the hard jut of his cock against her backside. It inflamed her, and she was impressed with her own audacity when she'd untied his trousers and pushed them to the floor. She looked at him a long time, never having seen a man like that before. He stood still as a sparring pell, hands fisted by his sides, but if she wasn't mistaken there was mischief in his eyes. He was proud of himself, of the part of him that bobbed in the air between them, stiff and hot.

 _Completely proportionate_ , she noted, stifling an internal giggle.

Truthfully, it scared her a little, but he gasped deliciously when she took him in hand, and she felt immensely powerful as she watched her reactions once he'd taught her what to do. Kneeling between his feet had given her the perfect vantage point from which to observe him, loving the way his face contorted, his lips and cheeks flushing, his eyes almost black as he watched her. He looked at her like he was starving, his eyes refusing to leave her face. It almost embarrassed her, but she found herself returning his gaze as much as possible, though she was distracted by her explorations. When that little bead appeared at his tip, she furrowed her brow and then bent without hesitation to see what it tasted like. He had, after all, no compunction about using his mouth on her.

The effect had been immediate and immensely satisfying as a loud expletive was released from his throat, his eyes going wide and nearly rolling up into his head. She relished watching his lack of control, his hands flexing in her hair, his hips bucking involuntarily when she drew him into her mouth again. He gasped some protestations, but she didn't listen to him, reading instead his pleasure in his guttural cries and creative use of her name and every curse word she'd ever heard.

He'd gone suddenly tense and still, and she felt it flood her mouth as he groaned. She smiled up at him, wiping her hand across her lips. The expression on his face wasn't what she expected. He looked utterly remorseful.

"I'm sorry," he said frantically, swallowing hard.

"For what? Did I do something wrong?" she asked, suddenly afraid.

He laughed. "No. No, you did nothing wrong, it's just-"

"What then?"

"I wouldn't expect a lady to-"

"Did you like it?" she asked pointedly, already knowing the answer.

"Fuck yes," he replied slackly, and her stomach flipped.

"And if I want to do it again?" She wanted very much to do it again, as often as he'd let her. It was a heady thing, making Sandor Clegane lose that steely self-control, come apart at the seams.

"You'll have no objections from me."

He cradled her against him as he leaned against her headboard. Apparently, what she'd done to him had loosened his tongue. He came as close to admitting his feelings for her in his own words as he had ever done. He'd talked about Wynna and her preternatural ability to see through people, a skill Lenna had for everyone except him. And then he'd told her something that eradicated the lingering anger in her belly altogether.

She could still remember watching her father pull him close in the courtyard of the New Castle, urgency on his whiskery face as he clasped the younger, much larger man by the elbow. Her father had said something to him that had made his eyes go wide, and she had wondered what it was. She had some sneaking suspicion that it was to do with her, but what that particular exchange could be, she had no idea. It didn't look like a threat, or an admonishment, and Sandor had colored at her father's words.

"He told me," Sandor said at last, "that if I could make sure you were safe through whatever it was that he would give me anything I asked for that he could give."

Lenna felt as if all the air had been stolen from her lungs. _Seven bless you, Papa_ , she thought madly, knowing in a moment exactly what her father had meant. She marvelled that he had seen it years before, before she even admitted what she felt for the man behind her, marvelled that he'd _approved_.

"Sandor," she murmured. "You know that he meant-"

"Did he?" His voice was unsure, almost tremulous. It made her love him all the more.

"Yes," she whispered. "Yes, he did."

He turned her face to his, his hand along her jaw as his eyes met hers solemnly. _There is so much to say_ , she thought, _and I can't find the words._

"Then I'll have to keep you safe, won't I?"

He'd left her with a lingering kiss before he'd put on his helm and headed out into the night. She didn't sleep. There was far too much to think about, and Lenna was far from easy. If anything, Sandor's revelation had only driven their stakes even higher. She had allowed herself to think there could be a future when he'd shown her the parchment he carried on him at all times, thinking of a keep and lands as assets in whatever fight they might attempt. It had felt like a frail fantasy, and perhaps it was. But her own father's promise almost nullified its necessity. If Wyman Manderly had indeed spoken those words, it was as good as a contract. She knew he'd honor it.

They only had to survive long enough to see it happen. Something that would be easier talked about than done.

To survive meant to be exactly what the Lannisters wanted them each to be. For Lenna, that meant staying in Cersei's good graces, something that wasn't terribly challenging. The morning after the raid, Cersei had called Lenna to her first thing in the morning. They did not speak much, the queen asking an odd question that Lenna did her best to answer satisfactorily. Nothing particularly political or pressing, mostly about Myrcella's education. And what to do with Sansa Stark.

Arya had disappeared, and the queen didn't appear terribly concerned by it. It worried Lenna greatly, wondering what on earth had happened to the littlest Stark. She'd told Sandor, of course, but he had heard nothing, even after a few well-timed forays into Flea Bottom to listen in the ale houses. The girl had simply vanished.

After three days, Sansa Stark was brought before Cersei. The queen had assembled the small council in her solar, and Lenna found herself trapped with them during the proceedings. Cersei had called her that morning, and she had sat with the queen as she breakfasted, in better spirits than Lenna had ever seen her. When Pycelle and Baelish entered the room, she had risen to leave, but the queen bid her stay. It took all of her self-possession to take her seat again gracefully.

Sansa was a trembling wreck when she was led into the room, her blue eyes even more vivid in her tear-stained face as she stood before the queen. Lenna felt her for, trying to smile a little when the girl's gaze flicked to hers. She was surrounded by so many foes.

"Are you well, my dove?" the queen asked.

"Yes, your grace," the girl replied at once, a faint tremor in her voice. "Only-"

"Yes, my dove?" Lenna could detect the trace of annoyance in her tone.

"No one will tell me what is going on," Sansa said. Lenna had to give the girl credit for trying to keep her voice even.

"Oh, dear child," the queen said softly, her eyes glowing with a pleasure that Lenna found reprehensible. "Your father has been arrested."

"But your grace-"

"My dear Sansa," the queen interrupted. "Be assured that the king loves you, wishes the very best for you, but I am afraid, child, that your father is a traitor."

"He isn't, your grace," the child protested, her voice rising. "Father would never-"

"He is betrayed by his own hand," Cersei said. She rose from her seat and went to her desk, returning with a letter. "See, my dove? He wished to send this message to Stannis Baratheon. He was trying to take the throne from Joffrey."

"It can't be true," Sansa said weakly, taking the letter as her auburn brows knitted together. "He was the king's friend."

"Alas, my dear, read it for yourself."

When Sansa looked back up, she had tears in her eyes.

"But I am to marry-"

"The king loves you my dear, very much," Cersei said, reaching out and touching the girl's pale cheek. Lenna nearly shuddered to see the false show of care. "And we know what a loyal subject you are. After all, you came to us as soon as you heard of your father's idea to send you away, isn't that so?"

Lenna's ears perked at this. She had no idea that Sansa had gone to the queen to tell her of Ned Stark's plans. A trickle of ice ran through her veins at the thought that perhaps Sansa had known that Lord Eddard had offered to take her home as well.

"I told you because I love Joffrey. I want to marry him," Sansa insisted.

"The girl could still be a traitor," Pycelle said. Lenna had quite forgotten he was there.

"She will grow resentful, your grace, and more like her father," Varys posited, his hands hidden in the folds of his robe.

"No," Baelish cut in. "She is Cat Stark's daughter. She is very like her. I do not think she would turn traitor."

"There is little difference as far as I am concerned," the queen said with a twitch of her eyebrow. "Lady Helenna, what do you think?"

Lenna looked at the queen in astonishment.

"Me, your grace?"

"Yes."

Lenna looked at Sansa for a long moment.

"Lady Sansa is young your grace, innocent and naive to the ways of the world. I doubt very much she had any idea what her father was plotting. I'm sure it is as much as a surprise to her as it is to, well, to me. Am I a traitor, your grace?"

"Of course not, Lady Helenna," the queen said. "What a thing to ask."

"I only ask, your grace, because it seems to me that Lady Sansa's crime is only her birth. She has done nothing wrong. In fact, it seems she came to you of her own free will to help your grace, and the king, to tell you something she felt you needed to know."

"As you did."

"Yes, your grace."

"But her sister turned her wolf on the king, remember?"

"Aye, your grace, but Lady Sansa-"

"I am nothing like Arya," Sansa said forcefully. "I would never hurt the king. I only want to marry him and have his babies."

"Perhaps," Cersei said, looking at Lenna, "if the rest of her family proves loyal it would allay the council's fears."

"What do you suggest, your grace?" Lenna asked, keeping the tremble out of voice that started rumbling coldly in her belly.

"Lady Helenna will help you write a few letters, Sansa. She has three of her own to write, you see," Cersei said, flicking her eyes to Lenna. She could do nothing but nod in return even as her insides turned to ice. "You must write to your lady mother, and to your brother, and tell them that your father betrayed the king."

"I do not know what to say," Sansa said.

"We will help you, won't we, Lady Helenna?"

"Of course, your grace," Lenna answered, swallowing bile at the thought.

"It is most important that we maintain peace, Sansa. You must tell them that you are being well taken care of, and that they must come to King's Landing to swear fealty to the king."

Sansa looked between the queen and Lenna, but she couldn't muster a smile for the girl.

"Can I see my father?" the girl asked quietly. Lenna shut her eyes as a wave of pain for her overtook her senses. Pain and jealousy, feeling certain that she would never see her own father again in that lifetime.

"A loyal subject would not ask such a thing," Cersei admonished quietly. Lenna's stomach turned.

"Come," Lenna said, rising with a falsely bright smile. She beckoned the girl to come with her to Myrcella's little desk that sat beside the queen's. "I'll write mine first. You'll have to but copy it."

She forced herself to write a brief message to her father following Cersei's exact instructions. She copied it twice more, addressed to each of her brothers. She did it with as little reaction as possible, each stroke of the pen a prayer that they would guess it was written under coercion.

"Here," she said, sliding the paper toward Sansa. "All you need do is change the names and sign your own."

The girl sat down hesitantly, but did as she was told.

"We women are the weavers of peace," Cersei said, a cold smile on her lips as she looked at Sansa, then turned her eyes to Lenna again. She smiled tightly at the queen. "We have so little power that we must yield what we can well."

Lenna felt that this statement was more for her own benefit than for Sansa's, but she said nothing in response.

The girl wrote her letters, and the queen smiled at them both, warmly this time. The parchments were wrapped and sent with Pycelle for immediate delivery by raven.

The queen asked that Lenna and Sansa begin to join her in the mornings. Sansa was thrilled with Cersei's attention, chirping blandly to Lenna as she worked on her embroidery in the solar with the other maids. Lenna didn't even bother to try and sew, instead sitting with a book in her hand or standing at the window, looking out over the sea before Myrcella's lesson began.

The solar was always busy, but everyone seemed haggard, resigned. Joffrey's court was much different than Robert's had been. Where there had been gay laughter there was now sullen silence, the very demeanor of the courtiers changed as they danced around their new king like they would a viper. Their voices were hushed and furtive, everyone's eyes more suspicious than ever before, and she felt many of them fall on her, heard their whispers. But, Lenna did not fear for herself. It was strange, but she was confident that the Lannisters would let no harm befall her while she was in King's Landing. It would do them no good. She had proven herself, time and again, not a Northern lady, but a Lannister servant. A loyal servant.

 _Safe in the eye. For now._

Sandor XXIX

He saw her toward the back of the crowd standing with Sansa Stark. He didn't like the amount of time she was being asked to spend with the Stark girl, felt keenly that it would not be to her advantage. But, it was what the queen commanded, and she did as she was told.

He'd spent the last week with the low grumble of worry in his gut. Ever since Ned Stark had been taken prisoner and led into the Black Cells, Sandor could feel the storm winds whirling faster and faster. Old Manderly's hurricane was about to make landfall, and keeping her in the eye was going to take a considerable amount of work on her part. So far, she'd managed it with little outward trouble, though he knew it taxed her peace of mind.

He was standing in his usual place at Joffrey's left, his helm in place. There was a large gathering of courtiers, eager to see how the new king would conduct his first day of arbitration, though there were to be no petitioners that day.

Instead, Joffrey had started his rule with a show of force, having Pycelle read a long list of people who he wished to present themselves in King's Landing to swear fealty to him. He noted Lenna's father and brothers among those named, her eyes meeting his across the heads of the crowd. The Starks were read last, and Pycelle read out every last one of them's name, down to little Rickon, no more than five or six.

"In the place of the traitor, Eddard Stark, it is the wish of his grace that Tywin Lannister, Lord of Casterly Rock and Warden of the West, be appointed Hand of the King. Lastly in these times of treason and turmoil it is the view of council that the life and safety of King joffrey be of paramount importance."

"Ser Barristan Selmy," Cersei called, standing.

The Lord Commander of the Kingsguard approached the dais slowly. He was still a powerful-looking man despite his years. His shoulders were thrown, his eyes level with the queen's as he stood with his hand on his pommel in the attitude of a life-long soldier.

"Your grace, I am yours to command," the old knight replied, and he knelt with his head bowed reverently.

"Rise, Ser Barristan," the queen said graciously. "You may remove your helm. You have served the realm long and faithfully. Every man and woman in the Seven Kingdoms owes you thanks, but it is time to set aside your sword. It is time to rest and look back with pride on your many years of service."

"Your grace the Kingsguard is a sworn brotherhood, our vows are for life. Only death relieves us of our sacred trust," the old man said solemnly.

"Whose death, Ser Barristan? Yours or your king's?" Cersei replied, her tone placating.

"You let my father die. you're too old to protect anybody," Joffrey hissed.

"Your grace-" the Kingsguard protested.

"The council has determined that Ser Jaime Lannister will take your place as Lord Commander of the Kingsguard."

 _Of fucking course they have,_ Sandor thought darkly. Tywin as the Hand, Jaime as the Lord Commander, Cersei the queen regent. There was no doubt that the Baratheon's no longer controlled the throne. The only power now was Lannister power.

"The man who profaned his blade with the blood of the king he was sworn to protect," Selmy protested, his fury apparent to all who saw him.

"Be careful, Ser," Cersei warned, ice creeping into to her voice.

"We have nothing but gratitude for your long service, good Ser," said Pycelle, his voice dripping like honey. Sandor could never tell what the eunuch actually thought. "You shall be given a stout keep beside the sea with servants to look after your every need."

"A hall to die in and men to bury me," Selmy spat. "I am a knight. I shall die a knight."

He proceeded to unfasten his white cloak, throwing it on the floor, closely followed by his helm and his gauntlets.

"A naked knight, apparently," Baelish quipped. Lenne curled her lip in disdain.

Selmy unexpectedly drew his sword, and Lenna saw Sandor's hand go to his pommel. But it was apparent to everyone, even her, that Selmy meant no threat. With a snort of derision he cast the sword on the floor, where it landed with a loud clang.

"Even now i could cut through the five of you like carving a cake," he snarled. He turned his disdain on the king. "Here, boy, melt it down and add it to the others."

He seemed ten feet tall as he turned heel and left the throne room, not bothering to bow toward the king. _If there was ever a knight like those fucking stories, it was him_ , Sandor thought darkly, feeling he had just watched something die.

"If any man in this hall has other matters to set before his grace, let him speak now or go forth and hold his silence," the herald said, trying for all the world to look like nothing had happened.

"Your grace."

The voice was thin and reedy, and he recognized it at once. He looked at Lenna, and her face told him that she'd no idea the girl planned to speak.

"Come forward, my lady," Joffrey said, and Sandor's lip curled at the sickly sweetness in his voice.

"My Lady Sansa of House Stark," the herald announced.

"Do you have some business for the king and the council, Sansa?" the queen asked.

"I do," the girl replied. "As it please your grace, I ask mercy for my father, Lord Eddard Stark, who is Hand of the King."

 _The fuck is the girl doing?_

"Treason is a noxious weed. It should be torn out by the root," Pycelle spluttered.

"Let her speak, I want to hear what she says," Joffrey said, raising a hand to the Grand Maester.

"Thank you, your grace," Sansa replied.

"Do you deny your father's crime?"

"No, my lord, I know he must be punished. All I ask is mercy. I know my lord father must regret what he did. He was King Robert's friend, and he loved him. You all know he loved him. He never wanted to be Hand until the king asked him. They must have lied to him, Lord Renly or Lord Stannis or somebody. They must have lied," the girl babbled, her cheeks reddening and her voice growing shrill.

"He said I wasn't king. Why would he say that?" Joffrey demanded

"He was badly hurt. Maester Pycelle was giving him Milk of the Poppy. He wasn't himself otherwise he never would have said it."

"A child's faith is such sweet innocence, and yet they say wisdom oft comes from the mouth of babes," Varys opined.

 _He talks but he doesn't say shit._

"Treason is treason," Pycelle reiterated.

"Anything else?" Joffrey asked gently.

"If you still have any affection in your heart for me, please do me this kindness, your grace," Sansa asked. Sandor almost rolled his eyes. He'd given Lenna hell for years about her love of courtly manners, but Sansa Stark was worse than ever she had been.

"Your sweet words have moved me," Joffrey said, placing his hand on his chest. "But your father has to confess. He has to confess and say that I'm the king or there will be no mercy for him."

"He will," Sansa replied, her voice ringing with certainty. She made a low curtsey to the king before taking her place beside Lenna again. Sandor's eyes met hers across the room and he didn't like what he saw there.

"Your grace," Pycelle said, grabbing the king's attention. "There is the matter of your kingsguard. You are a knight short."

"In the place of Ser Barristan, I name Sandor Clegane to the Kingsguard," Joffrey declared.

Sandor felt his blood go cold in shock and dismay.

"Your grace?" he rumbled, turning to the boy in confusion.

"He is not an anointed knight," Ser Boros protested.

"No," Joffrey replied. "He is not. What say you Clegane?"

"I'll not renounce my lands," he said quickly. "Nor take any vows."

"I wouldn't ask it of you," Joffrey continued with a little laugh, casting a smirk at Blount. "You can keep your pile of rocks."

"Members of the Kingsguard must renounce all titles, lands, and possessions," Blount continued.

"Are you questioning me, Ser Boros?" Joffrey demanded. "I'm sure my newest Kingsguard would not mind teaching you a lesson in respect."

"Of course not, your grace," Blount replied.

"What do you say, Clegane?"

"I accept, your grace," he rumbled, inclining his head deeply. When he looked up, his eyes immediately found hers across the room. She'd gone as pale as she had the day of the tourney. This time, he didn't begrudge her. He was feeling rather off-kilter himself.

The armor was ordered that afternoon, though he did not want it. He thought he'd been pressing his luck by refusing to take vows and renounce his lands, though. Frankly, he was a little surprised that Joffrey had acquiesced to such a thing, later realizing he had enjoyed upsetting the ranks of the Kingsguard by allowing Sandor to join them without the sacrifices which they had all made. It certainly wouldn't make Sandor popular, but he never expected to be.

At dinner, she sat and chatted with Sansa with a smile on her face, but he noted that it never reached her eyes. She didn't look often at him, and he wondered why, desperate to talk with her. When Cersei had risen to retire, Lenna had followed, and she looked at him so pointedly as she went that he was left with no doubt that she wanted to speak with him, too.

He had not hesitated to go to her room the night of the raid. It was an extenuating circumstance, and he was left with no choice. It felt reckless that night, though he waited until after midnight and followed the same procedure, knocking once on her door and walking straight in while she shut the door behind him.

She turned, resting her back against the door as he came in the room. He turned and for a long moment they looked at each other. She looked exhausted.

"I shouldn't have come," he said at last.

"No," she replied, a little smile about her mouth. "Probably not. Especially now."

"Lenna-"

She closed her eyes, looking down at the ground.

"Lenna, I'll take no vows," he rasped, walking back to her. He reached for her hands, so cold when they rested in his.

She shook her head. "I know," she said quietly. "But does it matter? You keep your lands, you repudiate nothing, but it still keeps you here."

"Aye," he replied, having no argument against it. "While he is king."

She looked at him strangely. "Sandor-"

"You're right," he said quickly. "It isn't worth talking about. Not now."

She brought the hands that held hers to her lips, and he leaned his forehead to hers.

"We can't become distracted," he said lowly.

"What do you mean?"

"I made one vow, to keep you safe, and that's what I'll do," he replied. "If I have to wear that damned gold armor, then I will. Whatever keeps you on the right side of things."

She nodded. "And I'll stay by her side as long as necessary."

"She's none the wiser."

"Of course she isn't," Lenna replied. "Gods, Sandor, what a fucking mess."

He chortled against his will, the sound of that crude word on her tongue amusing him despite the circumstances.

"What do we do?" she asked quietly, her eyes liquid and unsure in the firelight.

"What we always do-"

"Watch and wait," she replied for him. He nodded. She absently brought his hand to her cheek again, and he turned it so his palm was cupping her cheek.

"Alright?" he asked.

She smiled weakly but nodded, raising up on her toes and kissing him softly. He leaned into her, but pulled away from her.

"Things will have to change again," she said lowly.

"Aye." His tongue was thick, his throat tight. "We'll figure it out."

"I know. I know we will," she replied, leaning up to kiss him again.

He felt her fingers on the straps of his armor, and he didn't move to stop her. She ran her hands over his shoulders as he unfastened the ties of her dressing gown, leaving her in just her chemise. He followed her to her bed, kneeling above her as he did all the things he knew she liked with tongue and lips and fingers, letting her explore him again with hands and mouth until they were both sweaty and spent, twisted up in her bedclothes. It was the best night he'd ever spent, even if he hadn't truly had her, stopping them before it got to that point, diverting her with other pleasures.

The best night, and the most bittersweet. He rose in the darkness before dawn, pulling on his armor as quietly as he could as she slept. There were circles under her eyes, and he didn't wish to wake her, noting how troubled her sleep already was as she whimpered in her slumber, the furrow between her brows.

He almost smiled when he bent to kiss it, thinking of all the times he'd wanted to do just that. What robbed him of his pleasure, though, was the persistent feeling that there would be far too many opportunities to smooth that indentation of worry and pain in their future.

A/N: Alrighty then, there we go. Do y'all enjoy it when I rewrite the same scene from the alternate perspective? I try not to do it _too_ too much, but sometimes I think it adds a little something to know what the other was thinking. Like it? Hate it? Too repetitive? Open to your feedback, of course. Lenna's bit was super long this go round. I'm trying to give Sandor more love next time. I know including the show material makes it longer, but it y'all are cool with it, I'll keep doing it. It helps keep me on track. I'm not looking to completely deviate...yet.

Thinking about posting this on AO3 as well. Thoughts?

Getting this out was my little birthday present to myself. Hope it suits, though I don't feel it's my strongest chapter. Should have the next bit up in another week or so. That seems doable.

Thank you again to all who read and review! Please continue to do so!


	30. Chapter 30

Lenna XXX

His scent clung to her sheets. When she woke, he was gone but she smiled to catch a whiff of him on her pillow. Steel and sweat and plain soap. She expected him to have left, but she was surprised to see the sunlight pouring through her windows. She hadn't slept so well or so long in weeks. She was sprawled across her bed, her hair a snarled mess and her chemise tangled around her. Despite her attempts, he had not let her take it off the night before. She supposed it was the last thing that stopped him from doing what he so clearly wanted to do. Even if it disappointed her, it still sent a hot thrill through her innards and a flush to her cheeks to think of his restraint. And to ponder what might happen if he let it go.

She was late when she finally made it to Cersei's solar, her hair not in its usual coil but draped across her shoulder in a braid she'd done when she was a girl. She had not been able to find a maid and didn't have enough time to try and sort it out herself. Her breath was coming short when she walked into the room. The first thing she noticed was how eerily quiet it was. Though it was true that the court had become more subdued since Joffrey had taken the throne, there was always some measure of noise as the lords and ladies waited on the queen. The lack of sound was inexplicable, especially seeing as the room was filled to the gills with somber courtiers, all looking furtively in the same direction.

It took her just a few seconds to spot the source of their fascination. Sansa Stark sat stoically near the dais on a cushion working on her embroidery, her cheeks flaming red as she tried to ignore their stares. The space around her was so empty it looked like she was on exhibit, the little lords and ladies of the court not daring to go near her lest their skirts brush hers. She had become a pariah, keeping mostly to her rooms, and Lenna felt the urge to applaud her bravery at coming by herself. Many other girls would have continued to hide.

Lenna took a deep breath and walked directly to her, refusing to abandon a thirteen year old girl to fend for herself against such cowards and upstarts. If no one else would speak to her, she would.

"Good morning," she said softly, taking a pillow next to the poor girl.

"Good morning," Sansa replied weakly, her smile a watery little thing that barely reached her eyes.

Lenna returned it with as much brightness as she could muster. Cersei was conspicuously absent, so she reached for her book. She had taken to keeping one or two in the solar for these dull mornings when she was expected to sit and simper. She refused to be completely idle, and Cersei had always liked her for her scholarly habits.

She'd barely even cracked the spine when a door was flung open with a clatter as it collided with the wall.

"Lady Helenna," Cersei said, entering swiftly from her chambers. "I would take a turn through the gardens."

Cersei stalked through the room like a hurricane, and Lenna could almost feel the queen's agitation whipping about like gales of wind. She replaced her bookmark with trepidation and rose to follow the queen, flashing a weak smile in an effort to give Sansa courage.

Cersei strode ahead of her with her arms wrapped protectively around her torso. She was angry, and Lenna hated to admit that she was frightened, worried it was directed at her. She wondered if someone had spotted Sandor leaving her chambers that morning, had passed him in the hall on his way back to the barracks. Or worse, had heard them through her door. Neither of them had exactly been quiet. The memory brought an embarrassed flush to her cheeks.

She was fighting against the urge to vomit when Cersei finally decided to turn and face her. With a quick flick of her wrist, the guards were dismissed. She stood looking at Lenna with her beryl-bright eyes, her chin lifted imperiously.

"Robb Stark has called his banners," she said flatly. "The raven came this morning."

It wasn't news that Lenna ever dreamed would bring relief, but she felt her chest loosen to hear it. She made herself furrow her brow, conscious of the queen's intent regard, careful to give her the reaction she no doubt wanted.

"Oh gods," she murmured.

Then, the force of the news hit her, her heart stuttering in her chest as the full import crested upon her like a breaker. Calling his banners against the Crown was treason, treason to which her own family was honor-bound to respond. It was no longer a Lannister army he was facing, but one that had the full backing of the queen regent and the new king. The squabble was becoming a storm.

"You are quite pale, Lenna," the queen observed, her eyes discerning.

"Such an act of open defiance," she whispered with dismay.

"You disagree with him, then?"

"Of course, your grace," she burst out in reply. "It's-"

"Treason."

"Yes, your grace," she agreed numbly. If they answered Robb, her father and brothers would be branded traitors along with Ned Stark. She had a difficult time believing Robb would make such a stand. All she could do was remember the blushing, bashful boy she'd seen in Winterfell just months before. That boy now threatened war.

"Treason." The word felt so hollow and heavy in her mouth.

"The king wishes to go to war," Cersei continued. "Of course, he does not remember what war was like, it was over before he was born. These same men that rose up in support of my husband now rise up against his son. How do you explain that?"

"Selfishness, ambition, damnable pride," Lenna replied without hesitation, her new-found anger rising again in her stomach.

"Despite your birth, you have always been a loyal servant of the Crown, and I trust you. My father trusts you," Cersei said as Lenna looked at her in mute shock. "I find myself in need of counsel."

"I'm sure there are better-" she babbled.

"No, Lenna," the queen said forcefully. "I would know what you would do in my situation."

Lenna balled her fists at her sides and took a deep breath. In her situation? Lenna was not a queen, she wasn't even a daughter of a Great House. She felt like she was standing at a cliff's edge.

Cersei must have noted her confusion and alarm at the question.

"There is no one in this Keep as well-read as you," she said. "Or as sound a judge of character, if my father is to be believed. Surely, there is something you have studied, histories perhaps, that could shed some little light on what to do in such a conundrum."

Lenna nodded, still wary of being asked her opinion on so important a matter.

"Yes, your grace. The histories would teach us the cost of such insurrections. We should avoid war if at all possible, your grace," she said, trying to keep her voice from shaking.

"Why?"

"We have been at peace since King Robert took the Iron Throne. The realm has prospered since. A war would throw us into chaos, would work against every advance we have made."

"The advances were not all Robert's," Cersei murmured.

"No, your grace, they weren't. They were Jon Arryn's. And Lord Tywin's."

"I am surprised you lump my father into your praise," she replied with a cocked eyebrow.

"Why would I not? He was Hand to King Aerys, and even the Mad King started his reign with great promise. In fact, the realm prospered under him while Lord Tywin was his Hand. It wasn't until the madness began, when he stopped listening to his advisors, especially your father, that he began to actively work against the best interests of the people."

"The people," Cersei said sardonically.

"Yes, the smallfolk," Lenna replied insistently. "You cannot discount their importance in this. Our prosperity is bought with their labor. They came to Robert in droves to fight. You didn't see them flocking to Aerys."

"You didn't see them flocking at all," Cersei said derisively, and Lenna wondered why the queen had asked her such questions if she didn't want to hear her answers.

"No, but I have read about it. At length. Though I know it is no substitution for experience," Lenna conceded, pressing her lips together in exasperation.

"My father was not convinced the smallfolk were necessary."

 _Lannisters don't believe anyone else is necessary, save themselves.._

"Nevertheless, he did understand that the people must eat," she pointed out. "Aerys did not care. It only went further in fracturing the kingdom.

"Go on."

"If Aerys had been sane, if your father had been allowed to continue to administer the realm, perhaps-"

"The rebellion would not have happened," the queen replied.

Lenna nodded slowly.

"Warring lords are never good for a realm, your grace. It allows for no prosperity, at least not lasting prosperity as we saw with King Robert. And it weakens the claim of the monarch. A peace must be brokered."

"But surely we cannot ignore-"

"Of course not," Lenna replied, remembering her own father's talk of the Reynes, his insistence that Tywin had been right in wanted the heads of the Lords of Castamere for their insurrection. "But here, mercy may speak more strongly than vengeance."

"What do you suggest?"

"The North is vast and rich, your grace. Send Lord Eddard to the Wall with his brother. Marry the King to Lady Sansa as a sign of good faith and to bring her brother back in line by acknowledging him as the Warden of the North."

Cersei pondered this idea for a long moment.

"The Wall would humble Stark, but spare his life. He'd have to repudiate his power, set young Robb up as Warden of the North. This young man, do you think he could possibly fall back in line?"

"Robb Stark is very young, your grace, and inexperienced. I cannot imagine who has counseled him to take this course of action, but his family is in such upheaval."

"What would your father say, do you think?"

Lenna closed her eyes. "My father abhors war, your grace. He saw too much of it in his youth."

"Would he speak to Robb?"

Lenna felt the breath leave her lungs.

"I do not know, your grace."

Cersei looked vaguely disappointed, but she did not ask any additional questions. She reached out and laid a hand on Lenna's shoulder.

"Thank you, Lenna. I know that was not easy for you," the queen replied, her tone almost comforting. "I will write my father."

Lenna tried to smile and failed.

"I only speak as I feel will benefit you, your grace. You said something recently I have taken to heart. I do not believe you would have said it if you did not believe it."

"What was that?" the queen asked, genuinely curious.

"We women must be the weavers of peace. As daughters, wives, mothers, it is our duty to preserve life, not destroy it," Lenna said, feeling the truth of it in her bones. Men would take them to war over an insult in an alehouse. She knew she was appealing to Cersei's maternal feelings. For all of her many faults, the queen loved her children, her instinct to protect them almost as strong as, if not stronger than, her Lannister obsession with power and control.

"It is a pity I cannot put you on the small council," the queen responded. "You would be such a diplomat."

Lenna tried to smile again. The thought made her feel ill, to be in such a constant state of cold terror as she was forced to dispense such counsel with those green eyes fixed on her in such a way.

The queen's mood was considerably lightened and she rose, strolling along the terrace that looked out over the sea. Lenna walked with her, her own mind roiling as she plastered that look of bland pleasantness across her face.

When they returned to Cersei's solar, Lenna was able to spare a real smile for Sansa. The girl looked vaguely startled for a moment, then returned it. Lenna felt a sharp stab of pity for the girl, but made a resolution to herself as she watched her calmly return to her work. Lenna felt keenly that she had been unfair in her assessment of the child, and reminded herself that a child is what she was. Sansa Stark was just as isolated and cut-off from her family as ever she had been, but Lenna's father had never stood in open defiance of the crown. She wondered if Sansa knew that her brother had called his banners, but she guessed from the girl's placid demeanor that she did not. It was for the best. She deserved a little respite before she had to face the lions again.

Sandor knocked just after midnight again, and Lenna opened the door to him. He'd left off his plate and he was freshly shaven. Not that she cared, she'd come to relish the scrape of his cheeks. She closed the door behind him, and was caught off guard when he seized her around the waist and pulled her to him roughly. Her hands were trapped between them as he ran his own along her face and into her hair. She'd left it loose for him, having long ago noticed his fascination with it, the way his fingers kept themselves busy in it when it hung around her shoulders.

His mouth was hungry and he pressed her against the door, the long lines of his body hard as he pushed against her. She could do little but reciprocate as much as her position allowed, waiting for him to relinquish his hold. It was a long time coming, his hands grasping at her as he held her like a dying man, clinging and almost desperate. It made her quake, but not in the way that she liked, in a fashion that made her fearful.

The fervor abated and he rested his forehead against hers, catching his breath.

"Sandor," she ventured. "Is everything alright?"

He kissed her forehead, but when he nodded, his eyes were grim.

"Aye," he whispered. "It is now."

Sandor XXX

He could not stop himself from going to her chambers, even though he knew he risked them both each time he did it. The pull to be near her was too strong. He ached for her by the end of the day. There were too many images of her in his mind: the way her chemise clung to her figure, how she gasped when he touched her, her hands against him with an eagerness he'd never dreamed of. They made his blood thrum. He also spent considerable time thinking of the many little moments that almost convinced him that she loved him as she said she did, those times when she would look up at him with her eyes full, the myriad smiles and flushes, the fluttering of her eyelashes on her cheek when she whispered to him, those words spoken so softly but cutting so deeply.

The same words turned to sawdust in his own mouth, and he couldn't bear to say them fully. They froze on his tongue and lodged in his throat, but he searched for ways around saying them, not yet brave enough to speak even though he meant them. Dear gods, how he meant them, and always had.

Instead that feeling poured out of his fingers, tracing hot lines across her body as she panted and gasped beneath him, the thin chemise of her gown concealing nothing. The only reason he kept her from removing it lay in his own misbegotten sense of honor. Without it, skin to skin, there was no guarantee that he would be able to keep himself away from her, to prevent himself from taking her virtue in her own bed, the only witness the sputtering candle at her bedside.

The current of love was strongest after he'd brought her to pleasure, when she was in his arms resting against him. She would tuck her head beneath his chin, her hair loose for him to run his hands through, her fingers toying with the bramble on his chest or running down the sinews of his arms. She would talk about nothing in particular, a steady stream of words that lulled him like water over river rocks, his own fingers lazily making circles on her shoulders until her yawns became too frequent to be ignored. He didn't speak then because he couldn't, too wrapped up in feeling like something was binding all of his innards and squeezing. He had the strange notion that if he said the words, the pressure would relent, but he couldn't. So, instead he'd wait until she slept, fascinated by seeing her face in a state of peace as she nestled against him, wondering why in the seven hells she wanted him, but not stupid enough to question it. He hated the moment when he'd disentangle himself from her, but he was always gone long before daybreak.

Thinking of her got him through the endless days of Joffrey, of being a fucking Kingsguard. He hated the white plate, the straps new and stiff, the metal disturbingly bright. He figured he looked like a fool in it, a dangerous fool, but no different than a lumbering jester.

The boy kept him close, and Sandor's early misgivings about the new king's potential as a ruler were proved true again and again. Joffrey was cruel and lazy, disrespectful of his ministers. The only person he seemed to listen to was his mother, and even then it was because the boy clearly feared her.

Their arguments were violent, the king throwing around his new title with annoying regularity. He was still not an adult, the queen his regent, yet he talked and acted as if he wielded the power of the crown alone.

"I want his head," Joffrey spat. He was pacing up and down his mother's study. She'd requested him to discuss the fate of Lord Stark, and Joffrey had dismissed the rest of his guards save Sandor. As far as Sandor knew, the Northman was still languishing in the Black Cells, his daughter alone save for the queen and Lenna. The whole Keep was abuzz with speculation about what might happen to Lord Eddard, the vast majority of the courtiers believing he'd be beheaded within the fortnight. It seemed the king was in agreement.

"Mercy," the queen said insistently, "will go further than vengeance in this matter."

They'd been arguing back and forth for the better part of an hour. Sandor kept his back to the wall, his head tilted forward as he always did so his hair obscured his face. He doubted either would pay him any attention as it was, but he wanted to make sure they didn't mark how closely he watched them.

"I am the king and he has betrayed me. Plotted against me. It would look weak of me to let him go." Joffrey's voice rose higher with each word, spittle flecking from his lips.

"You wouldn't be letting him go," the queen replied, her tone carefully modulated and soothing. "A life on the Wall is no life at all for a man like him. He'll suffer far longer than he would if you called for Ser Ilyn. And you will solidify the realm by keeping the kingdoms united."

"Let Robb Stark try me," he crowed brashly. Sandor fought down a grunt of annoyance. The boy had never seen combat, had no field experience to fall back on. If they went to war, Joffrey would not be his father. He would not ride in the vanguard. He'd be the kind of king who watched from a distance as men better than him died in the mud on his behalf.

"Lady Sansa is your intended," Cersei said quietly, trying a different tactic. "It would not be wise to engage her House in such a way. Marriage is intended to strengthen, not to fracture."

"Then break the engagement," he replied with a curl of his lip. "I don't like her anyway."

"What is not to like?" the queen demanded. "She is from an ancient family, she is beautiful, sweet, and amiable. She will be a fine queen when the time comes, and she will give you plenty of little princes and princesses to preserve your legacy. No, we will not break the engagement."

"Why?"

"Because your father wished it," she hissed. "He brokered the terms and arranged it himself. It is the best course for the realm that you take Sansa Stark to wife as soon as she flowers."

Sandor suspected it had more to do with the wealth of the North than with Robert Baratheon. That, and some longer game that she and her father had been playing for years.

"Disgusting," Joffrey smirked. "Women-"

"Are not what we are discussing. We are talking about Lord Stark."

The king wrinkled his nose like a toddler.

"Fine," he replied. "Send him to the Wall. Let him rot there."

Cersei's face shifted from that of an avenging harpy to something much softer and maternal.

"I knew you would make the right decision, your grace," she said quietly. Joffrey merely snorted.

"What should I do, just send him?"

"A public confession," Cersei suggested. Sandor almost groaned. It was cruel and unjust to submit a man like that to such humiliation. "Lord Stark will admit to his treason and you will grant him mercy. It will be a show of benevolence. It will win the people to you."

"I don't care if they like me," he replied shortly. "I'm their king."

He saw the flicker of irritation in Cersei's jaw.

"It is always best to have the backing of the people. Your father knew that. It was one of his greatest strengths."

"Didn't keep him from dying," the boy bit back.

"A public confession and a public pardon," she insisted, ignoring his attempts at diverting the conversation. "Followed by the renewal of your promise to marry Sansa Stark."

This clearly displeased the boy. He strode toward his mother's door.

"This talk bores me," he responded. "Arrange it, then. Come, dog."

Sandor followed him back to his chambers with trepidation in his breast. The boy proceeded to drink and mouth off for the rest of the afternoon and evening, and his banter with the other Kingsguards didn't make Sandor feel any easier.

Though it was Sandor that Joffrey wanted with him most of the time, it was Meryn Trant and Preston Greenfield that he caroused with. Two worse role models Sandor couldn't fathom, but he forced himself to stand by and listen. From what he could tell, Arys Oakheart's feelings were not too far from his own. The other Kingsguard was quiet like Sandor was, but he was courteous and good-natured. He didn't like Joffrey's shit any more than Sandor did, his face tight whenever the young Stark girl was spoken of in lewd terms. Sandor could have liked him for it.

He was finally relieved after the banquet, having spent most of the evening ignoring Joffrey's stupidity and watching Lenna from the corner of his eye. She looked a little rosier. He knew she'd been sleeping better, the dark circles gone from beneath her eyes as she laughed and talked with the princess and Sansa Stark. He noted how she frequently laid her fingers on the girl's wrist, which made Sansa's mouth quirk up and her eyes brighten.

 _Too fucking kind for her own good_.

By the time he'd bathed and dressed again in plain clothes, it was well after midnight. He knocked once and the door swung open almost immediately, Lenna smiling up at him. He took two steps into her room, barely letting her close it behind them when he wrapped an arm around her waist and hauled her against him.

His hands were greedy and he pushed her up against the door, his fingers at work relearned the lines of her sides and back as he pressed himself to her, never minding the way her own were trapped between them.

Worry poured out of him, worry and despondence. If anything, this business about Ned Stark had extinguished the tentative hope he'd allowed the grow at the thought of Wyman Manderly possibly honoring his promise. Even to himself, Sandor could not manifest the words of what it was he wanted, those terms never possibly intended to link his name and hers. Even if he wanted it more than anything, he refused to even think it lest he find himself bloodlessly gutted when it all came to nothing.

It felt inevitable. Hope was folly.

He had the most terrible feeling that the world was about to be upended again. He remembered what that had felt like before, during the rebellion. Then it had been exciting. Perhaps he was becoming an old dog, but he wasn't thrilled with the prospect of war this time, and he was sure it was coming no matter what the king said. He no more believed that Joffrey would let Ned Stark off with his head still on his shoulders than he believed dragons still existed. The king was agreeing now, but he would be surprised if Cersei's plan was honored.

Lenna must have sensed his disquiet, going still against him and letting him do as he wished, his hands on her body and his mouth against hers. He felt like he was trying to draw a breath from her lungs, like it would be the only thing that could save him. But he gentled, calmed, growing reassured by the soft sounds she made and the way she let herself go pliant against him.

He pulled away, pleased to see how he'd reddened her mouth, resting his forehead against hers as he caught his breath.

"Sandor," she said quietly, "is everything alright?"

He could feel her brow furrow against his, right below his eyebrow. He leaned back and kissed it, having started to count the number of times he did so. Only twice now, but he knew it would multiply, and quickly.

"Aye," he rumbled. "It is now."

She smiled at him again, a soft upturn of her mouth, leading him toward her hearth. He sat on the edge of her bed as she fetched two goblets of wine, returning to him and settling back against her pillows to look at him.

"Tell me what is wrong," she said lowly.

He blew out a breath harshly. He never knew how much to tell her, remembering their early days when he had refused to give her any information whatsoever. That was a long time ago, though, and she was deeper in it than even he was. The thought gave him no comfort.

"The queen wants to pardon Lord Stark."

"I know," she replied.

He looked at her sharply, cocking his head. The queen and the king had argued just before dinner, and he doubted seriously that Cersei had talked about such openly. He also knew he'd been with both of them all night, and Lenna had not attended them. There was no opportunity for her to find out such news.

"How?" he asked.

"Because I counseled her to do it."

There was a flash of chill through his blood, his stomach freezing solid and his heart plummeting to his boots. All was quickly melted by hot anger, a furnace of worry in his gut.

"You're counseling her now?" he demanded. "Gods, Lenna, you might as well wear a target on your back."

"She asked for my advice and I gave it," she replied gravely. "I am well aware-"

"Like fuck you are," he bit out, moving away. "You don't have to stand around and listen to him all day. He's as bad as-"

"I know," she replied quickly. "And so does the queen."

He took a long breath before looking at her. He knew she had no control over the queen's taste for her company, knew she could not refuse even if she wanted to. _Of course she fucking wants to._ Angering the queen was not an option.

"She won't be able to protect you forever," he said lowly. "You must be careful."

She nodded, taking a sip of her wine. Her temple tightened and he felt remorseful. Of course she knew that.

"I am as careful as I am able to be."

"Stay away from Sansa Stark," he said lowly, stepping back to her. "The queen doesn't ask you to sit with her any more, so stay away from her."

If only she could distance herself from the Northern girl, perhaps Joffrey would forget that she was a Manderly, that her family was bound to support Robb Stark.

 _Not fucking likely._

"She's to be the queen-" Lenna said matter-of-factly.

"That girl will never sit the throne," he replied with finality. Lenna narrowed her eyes and cocked her head at him.

"The betrothal is to be honored, is it not?"

"For now," he replied, "but it will be broken. Mark my words, and be glad of it for the girl's sake."

"Sandor-"

"I don't want to speak of it anymore," he said roughly, downing the contents of his glass and pouring another. "It's not why I came."

He felt her creep toward him, closing his eyes as her warmth seeped into him.

He turned his head when she put her hand on his cheek, concentrating on the feel of her palm against him, then her lips when her mouth found his. He exhaled a long breath, leaning into her, fingers digging gratefully into the fleshy curve of her hips.

"Ah," she said teasingly, pulling back a little bit. "I see now, Sandor Clegane. Is that what you came for?"

She had backed away from him coyly, and despite the shadow of worry he smirked. She giggled when he did, propelling herself backward as he lunged for her, pushing her down into the softness of her bedding with his body, her wrists trapped above her head.

"No," he said lowly, "but this is."

She stopped giggling, her laughter turning to gasps and sighs.

He was thinking of such the following afternoon when they all made their way out to the square in front of the Sept of Baelor. He probably should have kept his mind on the matter at hand, but it was too easy to let it wander to more pleasant things. If he had, he might have noticed Ser Ilyn Payne in their company. As it was, he took his place on the platform that had been erected, a stage for the farce that was to be the king's mercy.

From his vantage point behind the king, he could see Lenna seated with the princess and the prince in the gallery that had been constructed for the nobles of the court. Cersei was standing with the king, with the Stark girl beside her, there to play the role of the dutiful daughter who had successfully pleaded for her father's life.

It was a bright day, a capital day, the sky almost white in the glare of the sun. The crowds were loud, getting noisier when the guards appeared, Lord Eddard bound and stumbling in their midst.

He looked disheveled, his clothes the same he'd been wearing the day of his arrest, and his long hair was filthy. They obviously hadn't done him the dignity of a bath before his humiliation was complete. The man looked around, his eyes squinting. Sandor reckoned it was fairly painful after so many days in the pits of the Black Cells.

The bells of the Sept rang out as he made his way onto the platform, and even Sandor could admire how straight and tall he stood as he faced a crowd that was not there to support him. The smallfolk were confused, he knew, not knowing who to believe, but their first impulse was to trust the king. Consistency was better than a possible upheaval. The rumors that had been circulating the alehouses were not met with favor, the people more than happy to believe that Joffrey was Robert's heir, to want the relative prosperity they'd known under the old king's rule to continue unchallenged. Sandor doubted they truly cared one way or another, but it was good fun to have someone to hate, the ridicule, and despite his nobility, that person was, for the moment, Ned Stark.

"I am Eddard Stark," he said without preamble. The crowd immediately fell silent. "Lord of Winterfell, and Hand of the King."

He turned to look at his daughter, and the girl smiled at him in encouragement. Sandor wondered how she was able to watch such a travesty with such hope in her face.

"I come before you to confess my treason in the sight of gods and men. I betrayed the faith of my king and the trust of my friend, Robert. I swore to protect and defend his children, but before his blood was cold, I plotted to kill his son and seize the throne for myself."

A loud cry went up from the crowd, and someone lobbed a stone at him, hitting him in the temple. He staggered for a moment, Sandor taking a step forward and catching him before he fell. With a push from him, Stark regained his feet and turned back to the crowd, squaring his shoulders.

"Let the High Septon and Baelor the Blessed bear witness to what I say. Joffrey Baratheon is the one true heir to the Iron Throne by the grace of all the gods, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm."

Another cry went up from the mob, and Sandor was confused as to whether it was in support of what he'd said, or in opposition.

"As we sin, so do we suffer," Pycelle said, stepping forward with his hands raised to calm the crowd. "This man has confessed his crimes in sight of gods and men. The gods are just, but beloved Baelor taught us that they can also be merciful. What is to be done with this traitor, your grace?"

The crowd, again, dissolved into shouting, but Sandor could not tell what they wanted. Joffrey raised his hand, a smirk on his face, and they once against went silent.

"My mother wishes me to allow Lord Eddard to join the Night's Watch, stripped of all titles and powers he would serve the realm in permanent exile, and my lady, Sansa, has begged mercy for her father," he said, his voice almost tender as he spoke of the Stark girl. It turned Sandor's stomach, knowing how little he thought of her. _Its all for show_.

"But they have the soft hearts of women," Joffrey continued, disdain seeping into his voice. "So long as I am your king, treason shall never go unpunished. Ser Ilyn, bring me his head."

The queen reached out urgently to the boy, grabbing him by the elbow, hissing something Sandor could not hear. Sansa Stark had gotten white, her face crumpling as she, too, pleaded with the young king. She moved toward Joffrey only to be seized around the waist by Arys Oakheart.

"Please stop...stop him," she begged, fighting against the Kingsguard's grasp.

"My son, this is madness," the queen said, just loud enough for Sandor to hear.

"Put him down," Pycelle cried, and Greenfield and Trant stepped forward, seizing Stark by the arms and forcing him to his knees. Against his will, Sandor took a step backward, looking for Lenna above the crowd.

Even from a distance, he could see that she'd gone white again, frozen in that sea of chaos, the two royal children looking up at her in dismay and confusion.

 _Cover their eyes_ , he thought wildly. _And your own_.

Sansa Stark continued to scream, her face red with crying, the queen looking on with horror.

"Stop him, Joffrey, stop! Stop him, please!"

He looked back to Lenna, who had buried both the children's heads against her breast, but refused to tear her own eyes from the scene before her.

Payne drew out his sword and did his work swiftly, the crowd going silent when the deed was done.

Stark's head was presented to the crowd, but they remained eerily quiet. Sansa was in hysterics, collapsed on the ground, the queen bending over her. Cersei helped her up, speaking quickly and quietly to her, Oakheart helping to lead the sobbing girl off the platform and back to the Keep.

He didn't know what to expect when he knocked on her door that night. He'd fought with himself as to whether or not he even should go, finally deciding that it would be worse if he didn't. Better for her to send him away than think he'd avoided facing her.

She opened the door, but drifted back to her window, leaving him to close the door behind him.

He was still armored, his broadsword strapped to his back, and he felt huge and oafish and wrong as he looked at her standing in the window, looking soft and sad in her dressing gown, her hair loose around her shoulders. She was hugging herself with one arm, resting her fingertips across her lips as she stared into the blackness beyond the casement.

"Lenna," he said softly.

She shook her head, turning to face him but not meeting his eyes.

"No, Sandor," she replied, her voice low and thick. "There is nothing to say that will change anything."

He stood silent for a long while, then took two steps toward her. She didn't retreat, but neither did she move to him.

"There was nothing anyone could have done," he said lowly. "The girl?"

Her eyes flicked to his and he saw scorn in them.

"How do you think she is, Sandor? She thought he was going to be pardoned, we all did-"

"No," he replied. "You did. The queen did. Sansa did. Perhaps even Pycelle or Varys, but not everyone."

"He's a monster," she said lowly.

"Aye," Sandor replied. "And this is just the beginning."

"I wish to all the gods I had gone to White Harbor," she hissed. "I have blood on my hands."

"No, you don't," he said with as much gentleness as he could muster. Gods, he was tired. "You did nothing wrong."

"If I hadn't-"

"Lenna," he said, grasping her by the shoulders. "Lord Stark would have committed his treason with or without the bloody book. With or without the queen's knowledge that he was looking for it. The book means nothing, not to anyone but you. Wasn't it you who convinced the queen to spare him? And you'll never convince me that the queen expected Joffrey to take his head."

"No," Lenna said, turning her face to hide her tears. "She didn't. She thought he'd be pardoned. I've never seen her like that, Sandor."

"Like what?"

"Afraid," she whispered. "Afraid of her own son."

 _Shit._

It hit him like an anvil, the notion that the queen might come to fear her son. She was indulgent, sure, but so far she had held firm against the boy. But if she was now afraid…

He shook his head to chase away the thoughts that threatened to consume him. It would do neither of them any good to dwell on them. The furrow was back, her face was strained, and more than anything, she needed rest. So did he.

"There's nothing to be done, not now," he said, kissing her brow. "Go to bed."

He began to turn to go, but she stopped him with a hand on his elbow.

"Stay. Until I'm asleep," she said, looking up at him from beneath lowered lashes. His lip quirked and he grunted.

He watched as she finished her evening rituals, washing her face in the basin, braiding her hair and draping it over her shoulders. She shrugged off her chemise and climbed beneath the covers. It transfixed him, watching her in such a moment, so at ease with him. Even with all of the things they'd done together, it was startlingly intimate to see her as herself, no pretense at all. It felt like an honor, one he wasn't sure he didn't deserve.

He stretched out on the other half of the bed, not bothering to take of his armor. It would take to long to put back on later. Rolling to his side, he found her watching him. She looked so unhappy, her face even paler than usual, her eyes tired as they searched his.

He pulled off his gauntlet and ran his fingers along the side of her face.

"Sleep," he said gruffly, darting forward and planting a kiss against her lips. It was short and chaste, but it was the best he could give in terms of offering comfort.

She nodded, closing her eyes and slipping her hand into his between them.

He lay and watched her as she struggled to find rest, at last rising when he was sure she was asleep. Grabbing his gauntlet, he blew out her candle, stepping back into the passageway with a heavy grief in his gut and an unremitting weariness that no amount of rest would chase away.

A/N: Everyone is so unhappy. I miss the old days!

As always, thank you to everyone who is leaving reviews, following, and favoriting! I take your input to heart, and I appreciate everyone who stopped to give feedback this week. Especially about the POV question.

Should be about another week until the next installment- I'm having to really focus on getting through this bit. I keep getting distracted by scenes from 10, 15, 20 chapters in the future. They just pop up and have to be written down so I don't forget them. Plus, I HATE what happens next, but it must be done. I did, however, really enjoy spending a much larger chunk of time with Sandor in this chapter. It's taken quite a while to really get a feel for his head, but planning to give him a broader platform going forward.

Read and review!


	31. Chapter 31

Lenna XXXI

Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Ned Stark's severed head. She'd been unable to avert her eyes when Ilyn Payne had done his duty, though she had managed to prevent both Tommen and Myrcella from seeing the grisly sight. It was the one aspect of the whole affair she felt she could be proud of. At least the royal children would not suffer nightmares caused by the unexpected violence perpetrated by their own brother.

It had played out like a poorly acted theatrical, the scene set beautifully. It was the perfect day for a display of royal clemency, almost like the king had ordered it. The sky was a bright blue, not a single cloud to be seen, and the light danced off the brightly dressed courtiers, making it feel almost like a festival day. In a way, it was supposed to be a celebration, at least it was according to Cersei. She'd orchestrated the whole tableau: in act one, Joffrey would pardon Eddard Stark and send the humble lord to the Wall after accepting his confession and apologies. There would be general wringing of hands and expressions of regret. Act two, however, would end the farce on a happier note as the king would renew his resolution to take Sansa Stark as his wife as soon as she reached maturity to signify that though a wrong had been done, the new king was just and merciful.

It was to have concluded with a feast, and from what she heard, it did, though Lenna was not in attendance. She, and many others, were too revolted by the sight of Ned Stark's head dripping blood like garnets onto the pavement to eat or make merry. It was far beyond Lenna's powers to pretend at revelry after bearing unwilling witness to her liege-lord's execution. Janos Slynt, the odious captain of the City Watch, had looked surprised when the crowd did not scream for Stark's head, instead there was an unnerving silence as the magnitude of what had transpired swept over them all. Lenna wondered if the king had supped alone.

Almost immediately afterwards, Lenna felt another cataclysmic shift in the capital. It had started incrementally, like the first rumblings of the mountains of fire she'd read about in Essos: a faint trembling after Jon Arryn's death, and a rattling upon the death of King Robert, but this tremor shook them to the bedrock. The death of Ned Stark was not what anyone had expected that morning when they woke, and the members of the royal court were going to bed with the knowledge that Joffrey Baratheon was ruthless and spiteful, dangerous qualities in a king, especially in times of unrest.

The change was so profound that she she felt that she could now divide her life into three distinct lifetimes: her childhood in White Harbor, her time in King's Landing, and everything that lay ahead. She was unnerved by how grief-stricken she was over his death, shocked by the amount of loss she felt whenever she thought of him on that dais, bending his proud spine and humbling himself before their snivelling king. He reminded her of her own father, her own family, with his gritty determination, his noble posture, his honest speech. Watching him she understand why the North was now in rebellion. A man like that inspired others to follow him, to fight for him, and to die for him.

She wondered how many men were going to die for him, how many lords would bare their necks to Ilyn Payne on the king's command.

The self-loathing took her by surprise, as well. She'd struggled for years with her strange relationship with the Lannisters. She had long accepted the benefits of close association with them, and now she, like everyone else in King's Landing, had stood by and done nothing to aid the man. There was nothing she could do, not without exposing her own neck and those of her kin. All she could manage was to try and be there for Sansa Stark when she could, but she did not know what she would do if such a thing became risky. It shamed her to think she would save her own skin over that of an innocent child.

She felt like a shadow of herself, moving like some wraith around the Keep. The passageways themselves rang hollowly, devoid of the throngs of brightly dressed courtiers that had once been their mainstay. When Lenna went from her rooms to the queen's, even the sunshine slanting through the stone filigree seemed dull, reflecting the mute horror that had fallen over the capital. The queen had been aghast, keeping to her own rooms with the children, barring the door to everyone except Lenna and the small council. Varys and Pycelle seemed just as shaken by the whole ordeal as Cersei was, though Lenna thought Petyr Baelish was strangely unaffected by it. She observed him as his eyes darted from face to face, lizard-like, gauging reactions and moulding his own into what he thought would please the greatest number of them, especially the queen. When he'd looked at her, Lenna didn't have the strength of will to hide her distaste.

She'd gone to Sansa Stark of her own accord once Cersei had released her the next morning. The girl had been moved into the Holdfast, her rooms just down the corridor from Lenna's. When she'd knocked, there had been no response. She knocked again. Then, she tried the door, and it opened easily. Lenna let herself in after only a moment's hesitation.

The girl was huddled in her bed, still in her gown, her hair a rat's nest instead of the lovely arrangement she usually wore. If Lenna couldn't see her breathing, the barely perceptible hitch of her shoulders, she would have thought the girl died of grief. When she saw the girl's deadened eyes and her hollow cheeks, she wasn't sure that she wouldn't.

Lenna did the only thing she could think of. She climbed in the bed beside her and settled the girl against her breast, tucking her head under her chin like she would have done Wynna. The girl didn't speak, simply cried, but she did eventually allow Lenna to help her undress, listlessly pushing her limp arms through a clean chemise. She sat in the chair before the vanity, not looking at herself in the mirror, and let Lenna take down her hair. Lenna brushed out the snarls in long, slow strokes to avoid yanking her scalp, and she hoped that perhaps it brought her comfort. She doubted Sansa would have felt it even if she did wrench a tangle, the girl was unresponsive save for the tears running in silent streams down her cheeks. When she was done, she trundled the girl back into the bed and tucked her in like a child.

 _She is. Just a child_.

Her own eyes were mysteriously dry as she kissed the girl on the forehead and promised to return the next day, leaving a cup of water on her bed table and pulling the door shut behind her.

When Sandor appeared that evening, she could not yet articulate her feelings about the day's events. He was still wearing the white plate of the Kingsguard, and she wondered where he had come from, in what fashion Joffrey was crowing over his victory. She did not wish to know, and she smelled the ale on him.

She knew he had come in an effort to give comfort, but there was nothing he could say that could allay her sense of dread. It was overpowering, even though it felt strangely dull, like the far-off rumble of a squall at sea. She knew it was coming, could feel the charge in the air, but could not yet determine how terrible it would be.

And she felt guilty. She persisted in thinking that perhaps, if she hadn't told Cersei about Ned Stark's visit to the library, perhaps this whole thing wouldn't have happened.

She was also keenly aware that she was flattering herself. Sandor was right. Ned Stark was a dead man the moment he set foot in the capital.

He'd put her to bed much the same way she had Sansa, only he'd stretched out on her bed in his plate and lay looking at her. She was so tired she couldn't lift her eyes. There would be no caresses, no soft words. She wondered if she would ever feel light enough to enjoy them again. Despite the tension and worry and unhappiness of the previous years, nothing compared with the sense of complete helplessness she felt in the face of the new king's cruelty.

She fell asleep quickly, her hands tucked in his big warm one. Her dreams were dark, Sandor riding away from her into a fog as she held something heavy in her hands, a cold wind in her hair. When she looked down, she saw that she clutched a cloak, a black and yellow swirl of snarling dogs.

The next morning she awoke with anger trembling in her belly. It was mixed with fear, of course, but she felt overcome with wrath for the Stark girl. And herself. She thought of how hard she had tried over the years to play the part they expected of her, and she applauded herself for her success. She had risen from an ignored, obscure Northern maid to become the only other person Cersei Lannister permitted in her private quarters that didn't bear her own last name. She prided herself on faithful service to the crown, though she had long ago acknowledged and accepted that she'd been bought as a Lannister servant. Had she not trained a princess of the realm, preparing her to take on her future role? Had she not unwittingly become a trusted counselor to a queen? Had she not learned, at great personal cost, the rules by which these stupid, dangerous games were played, and had she not kept herself afloat in them? Alive?

She was an unwilling participant, but she'd done her best, and done it well. When she looked at Sansa Stark, she saw herself as she had been when she'd come to court, only instead of being a little nothing, Sansa had a significantly riskier game to play. And no idea how to play it. Lenna cursed the fact that Sansa had been raised much the same way she had, with fairy stories of courtly knights and ladies fair. How she had clung to those stories, and how she clung to them still, wanting so much to believe in the world her parents had promised her.

And perhaps that world would have been hers had she stayed in White Harbor. Perhaps it would have belonged to Sansa Stark if her father had never been called to become Hand of the King. They both could have gone on to become ladies, wives, mothers, leading figures in their beloved North country. But they weren't allowed that destiny. It had been taken from them.

It made her furious, but it wasn't a burning anger. It was a freezing one. It chilled her to her core, down to her toenails. She'd spent nearly the last decade sweating in the heat of King's Landing, and the cold trembling was most welcome.

The maid arrived and helped her dress, then sat her down at her vanity and brushed out her hair. It fell long and thick, and Lenna thought about Sandor's hands in it, the way he growled and twisted it. The maid braided it expertly, the locks twining together as if of their own accord. He hated when she had it coiled around her head. Come to think of it, she hated doing it that way, too.

"Leave it," she said quietly. The maid looked at her in the glass. "It gives me a headache."

The girl nodded with a purse of her lips, running the gray ribbon through it and laying it across Lenna's shoulder as she had done so often as a girl. Lenna spared the girl a smile before making her way to Cersei's study.

The queen was there, and Lenna was shocked to see that she'd been crying. Her lovely features were blotchy, her eyes red and a brilliant green from tears.

"You're late," she said harshly. She was clutching a sheaf of papers, hugging herself tightly despite the heat of the morning sun through the casement.

"My apologies, your grace," she replied. "I was overtired yesterday and slept longer than I meant to."

"You are lucky," the queen said, and her voice broke.

"Your grace, what is wrong?" Lenna asked. Surely her tears were not for Ned or Sansa Stark.

"Here," the queen said, thrusting a sheaf of letters at her. Her words snaked out through her gritted teeth, the line of her jaw twitching with the effort of not crying. "Read them."

Lenna went to the window and went through the papers carefully, each one dousing the anger in her belly with fear until nothing but cold trepidation remained.

"I don't know what to say, your grace," she said, her own voice thick. Tidings like these might be expected, but certainly never welcomed. "Robb Stark has been driven back, but Ser Jaime is a heavy cost indeed."

"Yes," the queen said quietly, and Lenna knew she could say no more.

"Lord Tyrion should arrive soon," she said, trying desperately to find a bright spot amidst so much grief. "A week or two?"

Cersei nodded absently, then Lenna was horrified to watch as she reached out, seized a goblet, and flung it against the wall with great force. The glass shattered, the wine splashing against the stone and trickling to the floor.

"Tyrion," the queen seethed. "Tyrion is coming and they have taken Jaime. I wish to the gods that they'd killed my imp brother rather than taken-"

"Your grace," Lenna said, reaching out to her. Cersei stilled. "Don't say such things."

"Who would you trade, Lenna? In such a situation-" the queen bit out, her mouth frothing like she was some rabid animal, her eyes wild with pain.

"Neither, your grace. I wouldn't trade them at all," Lenna replied quietly, taking a chance and putting her hands on the queen's shoulders. "I'd have them both back here, safe. Just as I know you would."

To her surprise, Cersei walked into her arms and hid her face in her neck. Lenna did not know what to do other than wrap her arms around the queen and let her weep. She pretended it was Myrcella that she held, running a hand over her golden head, so like the princess', shushing her with soft words as she would the princess when she scraped her knee.

Cersei's grief was short-lived, and Lenna might have liked her for that immense self-control if she didn't know her better. Again, Lenna was struck by how blurred the line between decent and devious often was, how human and fragile Cersei seemed in the face of her brother's capture. It was almost admirable.

But as soon as the flicker of humanity had appeared, it was tucked away again.

"There is some bad news. For you, I'm afraid," Cersei said, wiping her eyes with Lenna's handkerchief. It was Sandor's, and Lenna stupidly wondered what she would think of it if she knew.

"Your grace?" Lenna said, knitting her brow. She already knew what it was. She'd just refused to think too hard on it.

"Manderly banners were seen at the Green Fork. Your father has answered Robb Stark's call."

"I had expected as much, your grace," she replied quietly. She never doubted that her father would answer his liege lord's call to arms, but it didn't make the news any easier to bear. It was like living her mother's death again, that staggering, blinding feeling of grief, feeling acutely that she would never see them again. She was truly alone, cut off entirely from her family, on her own without even the faintest hope.

"You are our loyal servant, Lenna," the queen said, seeing her dismay in her face. Lenna was surprised at how gentle her voice was, how soft her eyes. "You will always be safe among us."

Lenna made herself smile at the queen, but at the earliest opportunity she left, taking to her rooms in a state not at all unlike Sansa Stark. At least the girl had the luxury of publicly expressing her grief, others understanding her desolation. Lenna did not have that, and she knew that she must get a handle on her feelings quickly. It would not do to let the mask slip so entirely.

Sandor XXXI

Joffrey was in fine form, prowling about the throne room and hurling insults at every living creature he met. He was in high dudgeon that the Stark girl had not stirred from her room since her father's execution. Sandor wondered at his callousness. Even he knew that it would be best to let the girl be, to sort out her grieving. She was just a child, and he couldn't imagine how terrified a girl like that, high-born and sheltered, would react to the brutal murder of her father in front of her eyes.

But Joffrey was determined that his betrothed was going to attend him that afternoon.

"If she's to be my wife, she might as well get over it," he said callously, stalking down the corridors toward the girl's rooms. She'd been moved into Maegor's Holdfast, just down the hall from Lenna herself. He had been unable to go to her since the night of the execution, the king wishing his guards to carouse with him until the early morning hours. They were all exhausted and ill-tempered.

Sandor followed carefully, along with Meryn Trant and Arys Oakheart, staying behind Joffrey until they reached the poor girl's rooms. Without preamble, the king threw the door wide and barged in.

The girl was still abed, the curtains drawn to hide her.

"Get up," Joffrey barked. There was no response.

The king strode to the bed and threw the curtains open, revealing a cowering Sansa Stark, her eyes red from crying and her bright hair in disarray.

"You'll attend me in court this afternoon," he said forcefully, thrusting a finger in the girl's face. "See that you bathe and dress as befits my betrothed."

"No," the girl whimpered, "Please, leave me be."

"If you don't rise and dress yourself," Joffrey said, his eyes dark with violence. "My Hound will do it for you."

Sandor felt his temper flare, but he said nothing. He looked at the girl and hoped she had enough good sense to know he would not harm her. She looked back at him with her cornflower eyes and he thought he saw a flicker of understanding in them.

"I beg of you, my prince," she pleaded.

"I am king now," he said, a tinge of mad anger in his voice. "Dog, get her out of bed."

 _Poor child_.

Sandor looked at the girl, who had covered herself with her blanket. He wondered why she would not do as she was told, wondered if she was truly simple. He crossed to her in two steps, but he didn't have to seize her as he was afraid he would. The girl leapt to her feet, holding up her coverlet.

"Do as you're bid, child. Dress," he said quietly, gentling his tone as much as he could, reaching out and pushing her toward her wardrobe.

"I did as I was told, I wrote the letters, I wrote what Lady Helenna and queen told me," she said quickly. Sandor felt his hackles rise at the mention of Lenna. _Keep her name out of his ears_ , he thought wildly.

"Please, let me go home," she begged. "I promise, I'll be good. I won't do any treason, I don't have traitor's blood. Please, I just want to go home. As it please you."

Joffrey cocked his head, his jaw working.

"It does not please me," he replied, his voice soft again, a Lannister tactic that put Sandor on edge. "You are to marry me. Mother insists. So you'll stay here, and you'll obey."

"I don't want to marry you," the girl cried. "You chopped off my father's head!"

Sandor felt powerless before these two children, both of them playing a game they were too young to understand, one wielding a power so destructive and the other an innocence so dangerous.

"He was a traitor," Joffrey shouted. "I never promised to spare him. I promised to be merciful, which I was. I could have torn or flayed him, but because he was your father I gave him a clean death."

Sansa froze, her eyes narrowing in the way only an adolescent girl's could as she looked at Joffrey. The king stood with his golden head thrown back, his eyes hard.

"I hate you," the girl whispered.

 _You idiot child_ , Sandor wanted to bellow.

"My mother tells me that it isn't right for a man to strike is wife. Ser Meryn?"

Sandor gritted his teeth when the Kingsguard stepped forward and backhanded the girl across the face. It sent her sprawling to the floor, a trickle of blood at her lip, her knees skinned against the stone floor.

"Will you obey me now?" Joffrey demanded, a smirk on his lips.

The girl looked up at him with a hatred Sandor didn't think her capable of. _Hold on to it._

She touched the corner of her lip gingerly, looking down at the red on her fingertips with a mixture of disbelief and confusion.

"As you command, my lord," she said softly.

"Your grace," Joffrey hissed. "I'll see you at court."

The king and Trant stalked out, soon followed by a dumbstruck Oakheart. The younger guard looked at Sandor with clear dismay in his eyes, glancing regretfully back at the girl still sprawled on the floor.

Sandor took a deep breath and approached her slowly.

"I'll not hurt you, child," he murmured, reaching out tentatively to take her elbow. She looked up at him with wide eyes.

"I know," she said quietly with a slight inclination of her head.

He helped her gently to her feet. His chest was tight. He felt sorry for the girl, but all he could think about was what would have happened if it had been Lenna the king had targeted, and him instead of Trant ordered to carry out the humiliation.

"A word of advice," he said lowly, taking her chin between his finger and thumb, forcing her to look at him in the eye, willing her to see a friend there. "Save yourself some pain and give him what he wants."

Her eyes narrowed.

"I can't-"

"Yes, you can," he replied. "No one here is themselves, you see. He wants you to smile and smell sweet and to be his lady love. He wants you to recite all your pretty words your septa taught you, like a little bird. He wants you to love him, and fear him."

"He killed my father-"

"Aye," he replied. "And he'll not stop until he's killed everyone he ever thought did him wrong, little bird. Do you want to be among them?"

She shook her head, color in her cheeks.

"Then best learn to act your part, like everyone else," he said finally. "Don't keep him waiting too long."

Sandor left quickly, his long strides allowing him to catch up with the king quickly. He hadn't noticed his delay, though Arys Oakheart did look at him quizzically. He shook his head.

The girl appeared that afternoon, and to his dismay Lenna was at her side. Meryn Trant escorted them both into the throne room, Sansa's arm wrapped tightly into Lenna's. Sandor inhaled heavily in apprehension.

Lenna was dressed in blue, but it was her hair that threw him. He'd grown used to it being coiled on the back of her head, even though he did not like it. Now it was simply braided and thrown over one shoulder as it had been in her youth, before she'd put away the Northern girl and put on the capital lady.

Now, she looked like the almost-wild maid that had walked into Cersei's solar in her everyday woolen with her chin set like a queen's. No wonder Sansa Stark clung to her like a lifeline. Side by side, Sandor could see the same proud set of the shoulders. Sansa was tall, already Lenna's equal and due to surpass her, still growing. However, Sansa's face was still strained and blotchy, where Lenna's was carefully schooled into that false pleasantness the Sandor knew so well.

He wondered what in the seven hells she thought she was doing.

He watched her as Joffrey concluded his business, wondering what she was thinking. Each time he caught her eye, she looked back at him with the softest upturn of her lips. It didn't reach her eyes.

He followed Joffrey when he approached them, flanking him with Meryn Trant on the king's right. As they drew near, Lenna dropped a graceful curtsy, pulling a hesitating Sansa Stark along with her.

"You're looking much better," the king said, bending over Sansa's hand. Though his lips smiled, his eyes were hard.

"Thank you, your grace," the girl replied, managing her own smile.

 _Recite, little bird_.

"Walk with me," he commanded, extending an arm. Sansa took it, and they began on their way. Lenna hung back, turning to leave. "Lady Helenna, do join us. My lady Sansa is so fond of your company. A king should be pleased to walk with two such Northern beauties. Though perhaps Lady Helenna is a little old for the word."

Sandor kept his temper as Lenna curtseyed again and fell into step behind the couple.

"My name day is coming," Joffrey said pleasantly. It turned Sandor's stomach. "There will be a great feast. And gifts. What will you give me?"

"I had not thought, my lord-"

"Your grace," he corrected, none too gently. "You are a truly stupid girl, aren't you? My mother says so."

Sandor saw Lenna press her lips together from the corner of his eye. She said nothing.

"She does?" Sansa said, her voice querulous and trembling.

"Oh yes, she worries about our children. If they'll be stupid like you, but I told her not to worry. We'll have Lady Helenna to make them clever, won't we?"

"Of course, your grace," Lenna replied pleasantly. "It has been an honor to serve in such a way."

"I'll get you with child as soon as I am able," the king continued, turning his attention back to Sansa. Lenna glanced at Sandor and he could read her disquiet in her eyes. "If the first one is stupid, I'll chop of your head and get a smarter wife," he cackled. "When do you think you'll be able to have children?"

"Most girls flower at twelve or thirteen, your grace," Lenna offered, her voice as bland as a septa's.

Joffrey nodded. "This way. Both of you."

They were at the gatehouse, at the base of the battlements.

Sansa Stark froze, appearing to realize where they were going. He saw Lenna take a deep breath and square her shoulders. He wondered why Joffrey would make them come here, but then remembered who they were dealing with. Of course he would make Sansa Stark look at her dead father's head.

"No," Sansa murmured desperately. "Please, no. Don't make me. I beg you."

"I want to show you both what happens to traitors," Joffrey said levelly.

"I won't, I won't," Sansa replied, her voice high with rising hysteria.

"I can have Ser Meryn drag you up," the king threatened. "You won't like that. You had better do what I say."

"Come, Sansa," Lenna said quietly, taking the girl's hand. Sansa backed away, bumping backward into Sandor in a terrible echo of the day she'd first seen Ilyn Payne at Darry.

"Do it, girl," he said, pushing her gently back toward the king.

Joffrey extended his hand, and Sansa took it with great effort.

Lenna was in step beside Sandor as they scaled the steep stairway to the battlements. Under other circumstances, he might have been put to mind of the night in White Harbor when they had stood looking out over the sea. From the top of the ramparts it was if the whole of King's Landing had been rolled out beneath their feet, a vast, breathing map.

It was impressive to watch the Stark girl as she straightened herself, and again he was put in mind of a younger Lenna, cataloguing and forcing herself to appear calmer and more self-assured than she was. He wondered if she had struggled so, and he knew that she had, though with far less cause than this poor girl.

 _Was it really less cause?_

"What are you looking at?" Joffrey demanded, seeing Sansa's gaze as it scanned the horizon. "This is what I wanted you to see."

He nodded to the crenels, between which were mounted the heads of the executed traitors.

"This one is your father," he said, glee in his voice. "Dog, turn it so she can see it."

Sandor did as he was asked, seizing Ned Stark's head by the hair and twisting it so that it faced them. It was starting to deteriorate already in the hot King's Landing sun despite the tar bath it had been dipped in shortly after its removal from the lord's shoulders. All Sandor could think about was Lenna's head on a similar spike. He didn't know why the king had brought her with them to this awful place, but it didn't bode well.

Sandor watched the girl, her face unbelievably calm, then turned his gaze to Lenna. She had the same expression of benign tolerance slathered across her features. Her eyes, though, were troubled.

"How long do I have to look?" Sansa asked, her voice surprisingly strong.

"Do you want to see the rest?" Joffrey asked. He was trying to goad her, trying to make her collapse in hysteria as she had the day he'd cleaved the head from her father's body. Sandor felt a fresh wave of hate lapping at his innards.

"If it please your grace," she said, her voice almost dreamy.

Sandor breathed a sigh of relief at her newly acquired good sense. The party walked down the ramparts, passing a half dozen empty spikes.

"This one is your septa," the king said, pointing to a badly decomposed head. It had been there far longer than Ned Stark's had been, since the day of the raid on the Tower of the Hand.

"Why did you kill her?" Sansa asked, genuine confusion in her voice. "She was god-sworn."

"She was a traitor," the king replied simply. "She forgot who she really served."

Sandor's blood went icy when the king turned and leveled his simper at Lenna. To her credit she didn't bat an eye.

He continued to walk on, leading Sansa along beside him. "You still haven't told me what you'll give me for my nameday. Perhaps I should get you something instead. Would that please you?"

"If it please your grace," Sansa replied warily. _She's learning._

"Your brother is a traitor, too, you know," he said calmly, as if he was discussing the weather. "I remember your brother in Winterfell. My dog called him the lord of the wooden sword, didn't you dog?"

"Did I?" Sandor replied. "I don't recall."

He did recall. He'd said it the night after the banquet, still green to the gills from watching her dance with the lad, from tearing himself away from her and her bed of furs.

"Your brother defeated my Uncle Jaime," Joffrey continued. "My mother says it's treason. She wept when she heart. Women are so weak, even her. She pretends she isn't. And now my other uncles are thinking to attack, to take the throne from me. It is your father's fault, you see, calling into question my right to rule. And your brother has only made it worse."

From the look on the girl's face, Sansa had no idea of any of what had transpired in the days since her father's execution.

"After my nameday, I'm going to raise an army and kill your brother myself. That's what I'll give you, Lady Sansa, your brother's head."

"Maybe my brother will give me your head," Sansa said quietly.

 _Shut up. Just fucking shut up_.

Joffrey turned to her, his face grave. "You must never mock me like that, my lady. Ser Meryn, teach her."

He saw Lenna flinch when Trant backhanded the girl again. She reached for Sansa as soon as it was done, worry in her gaze. The king did not miss her concern, curling his lip.

"And you, Lady Helenna, my mother insists that you are loyal. You have certainly been here a long time, fussing over my sister and brother. But you're the daughter of a traitor now, too, aren't you? And your brothers are traitors just like my Lady Sansa's."

Lenna's eyes were averted from the king, and Sandor knew it was because she could not control them. Her face, however, was neutral. Sandor's heart was beating like a drum in his chest, so hard he thought it might dent his plate.

"I am ever loyal to the crown, your grace," she said quietly. "I know you are the rightful king."

"If you forget," he said lowly, "there's plenty of space here for new additions."

"My lord-" Sansa started hotly. Sandor seldom called on the gods, didn't believe they even existed, but he prayed in that instant that the Stark girl would just _fucking be quiet_.

"Ser Meryn, she begs for instruction," Joffrey thundered.

Trant struck her again, once on each cheek with his gauntleted hand. Sandor couldn't even muster that much rancor. If she kept babbling, she'd get them both killed. Or worse.

Sansa's eyes brimmed over with tears. He saw them in Lenna's eyes, too.

"You shouldn't be crying all the time. You are to be queen," Joffrey said, smiling. "You look better when you smile and laugh."

Sansa made herself smile, and it was a hideous thing, her chin dripping with blood from her split lip.

"Wipe off the blood, you look a fright," the king said.

Sansa went terribly still, her eyes darting behind the king. _She's a complete idiot_. Sandor saw what she saw in a moment. The king was standing close to the edge of the parapet, a sheer fall of seventy feet at his back. Her thin body was taut, and he thought he saw determination in her face.

"Here, girl," he said gruffly, dabbing her chin with his own handkerchief, drawing her eyes away from the king.

She looked at him for a long moment, and over her shoulder Sandor caught Lenna's eye.

"Thank you," the girl murmured, moving past them both like a shadow. When Lenna passed him, she laid her hand ever so briefly against the skin of his wrist.

The place where her fingers had grazed him burned as hot as any brand. He fell into step behind her, shepherding the women down the stairs, his mind inevitably straying to the first time she had ever laid her skin against his. It had burned then, too, because it was the first time. Now, it stung because he was almost certain it would be the last.

He'd reached a decision there on the ramparts. It wasn't a choice he wanted to make, and he was sure that he would come to regret it, but it felt as if it was the only option available. The way he saw things, there were two paths he could walk. He could continue to indulge his own desires like a dog, sneaking into her rooms at night to slake his thirst, or he could act like the damn knight she persisted in believing him to be. He chose the latter, though it pained him as deeply as a dagger thrust. He almost grunted at the force of it, but kept the Hound in place.

He did not go to her that night, though she looked so sad and pale at the dinner banquet that he almost lost his resolve. Instead, he followed the other men to the alehouses, staying out until it was far too late to make an appearance at her door. Being drunk was a poor consolation, but it dulled the pain and made the time pass more quickly until he could throw himself into his bunk in such a stupor that he didn't wake until the sun slanted through the little window at the top of his wall.

She continued to try and catch his eye just as she had always done, and even though he refused to meet her gaze, he was torturously aware of her confusion. By the seventh day, the confusion had changed to distress, and by the end of a fortnight to icy anger.

He tried not to let it bother him, reassuring himself that it was for the best. He even rejoiced in her anger, the sadness being replaced by ill-concealed annoyance and displeasure every time she saw him. He had disappointed her, he knew, not because he no longer came to her, but because he abandoned her without explanation. He knew he should have spoken with her, but he simply couldn't. He'd tried to think of what he'd say, but he'd been unable to generate anything even remotely satisfactory. Better to slink away like a cur with his tail between his legs.

 _Craven cunt_.

Her anger didn't help him sleep, even on the nights when he stumbled in from the alehouses just before dawn, so bone-weary and drunk that he should have passed out on the way to his pillow. Instead, the look of disdain on her face kept him awake, torturing himself because he knew exactly why she had taken to looking at him that way, her eyes narrowed to mask the remaining flicker of hurt.

Her anger was justified, and he accepted that. It would have been one thing to explain himself, to give his reasons and perhaps offer some reassurance, but he was a coward. He was afraid that she would look at him with soft eyes, try to extract some compromise, and he would crumble like a sea-cliff before that gentle onslaught.

 _You're a fucking cunt_ , he thought, _never could tell her no._

She might have even understood, but Sandor couldn't do it, he didn't have the words to tell her why he had to leave her alone. He was certain that his throat would close up as soon as he saw her, his tongue would become thick and clumsy, and he would end up doing exactly what could get her killed.

And at night he agonized in his bunk. If he'd thought it had been bad before when he'd only been able to imagine what it might be like to have Helenna Manderly wrapped around him, her hands on his skin, her mouth beneath his. He had no idea how torturous it would be to have real knowledge of it. To have experienced that with her, the gasping and the keening, the way she would cling to him, the way she would touch him. The way she loved him. It destroyed his equilibrium and left him panting and nearly insane, sweating in his bed, completely unable to find relief.

He threw himself back into training, finding that he had let himself go a little soft in the months since the Hand's Tourney. It was harder to splinter a pell, and there were a few moments when he was genuinely worried he might not beat one of his sparring partners. It was a rude awakening, and he applied himself to his regimen with previously unknown fervor. It was so effective that he began having difficulty finding anyone to fight with. He'd gone from vicious to mad.

On her nameday, though, he found himself slipping a parcel under her door before he even realized what he was doing. He vaguely remembered going to the marketplace and purchasing ribbons, one for this year, one for her previous nameday. He'd missed it, though now he couldn't remember why. One was a dark blue, the other burgundy, colors that she wore with frequency.

He slid them under her door on his way through the Keep. Her door unexpectedly flew open as he walked away. He couldn't stop himself from turning, it was reflexive.

She had stepped into the hallway, her shoulders thrown back, the parcel extended in her trembling hand.

"I cannot accept this," she said.

"Lenna," he said tiredly. He had come midday to avoid a confrontation and he was not equipped to speak with her. "It's your nameday." It sounded lame in his own ears.

"Aye," she replied tightly. "It has always brought me pain, and this is no exception. I don't want it, Clegane."

If she'd have stabbed him it would have hurt less.

"I'm sorry-"

"I don't want to hear your apologies. They aren't worth the breath to speak them or the effort to hear them."

"I can explain-" he attempted, moving a step forward, suddenly desperate for her to understand. He'd been avoiding her eye for weeks, and now he felt pinioned by her gaze.

"I know what you'd say. And I even agree with you. But I won't forgive you for the way you've done it, not this time."

"I didn't know how-" he protested. _She knows I don't have words_ , he thought wildly.

"I don't care. Take it back."

His heart was thudding painfully in his chest, and he felt his anger rise. She wouldn't hear him. She had always at least tried to hear him.

"No," he growled. "They're yours. Burn them if you like."

She looked back at him cooly, almost like she was completely unaffected. He was furious that he was seething with hurt and anger and she was standing there as if she was chastising a child.

"Why do you do this? Why do you make everything so difficult? All you had to do was-"

He didn't hear the offer of peace until it was too late.

"Argue with you in the middle of the hallway where everyone can hear you? I know i'm a coward, Lenna, but at least I'm not thoughtless."

He was fuming, his breath heavy and his chest feeling like it was filled with lead. He turned and began away from her. He'd seen her eyes widen in indignation, but he had to get _away._

"I'm not finished-"

"Yes, we are," he replied, only half turning back to her. They both knew he wasn't talking about the argument. "You may think me a dog, but I won't be the reason your head ends on a spike. That's all there is to it. If that happens, it will be your own doing."

He knew his voice was thick, every second he stood there costing him more pain than he thought imaginable. She looked back at him with the same kind of feral hurt in her face, the normally smooth forehead knotted, that furrow between her brows deep. If he stayed longer he'd do something rash.

"Good day, my lady," he said, inclining his head. It felt like goodbye.

She didn't speak, he could see the strain in her face, the working of her throat, the frantic flutter of her pulse beneath her jaw. His parcel was clutched in her hand, and without another word she went into her rooms and shut the door behind her.

He was startled to hear a crash from the other side of the door. He flinched, recognizing the sound of smashing pottery. A bolt of sick satisfaction flooded him was he walked toward the training yards, the scowl on his face sending the squires scattering. A match with another human being would go poorly, at least for the other man, so he made for the pells instead, hefting his long sword and fitting it into his grip.

He felt like destroying something himself.

A/N: I didn't want to do it. I didn't. I had to. I tried this scene about fifteen different ways, and this is the only option. Ugh.

Read and review. I live for them. The next couple of chapters will be difficult, so I'm begging for encouragement. Thanks to everyone who faithfully leaves kind words! I love you all! And thanks in particular to our guest, Abbey! I, too, was not a reviewer. Writing one of these has certainly changed that, and I so appreciate your words!


	32. Chapter 32

Lenna XXXII

Her nameday brought only pain, and seeing as no one acknowledged it anyway, Lenna begged Cersei to return to her rooms after breakfast. She lay in bed and read, curled up like a cat, sipping the tea the maids brought her in silence. But instead of solace, she steeped in her own pain.

She wanted to hate him. She wanted to hate him so very badly. He'd left her alone again, refusing the acknowledge that he was the only person she had inside the Red Keep. She may be Cersei's confidant of sorts, and the Stark girl looked to her increasingly for guidance, but she could not lean on them in the same way. Even Tyrion, when he returned, would be a half-friend. She could never be as honest with him as she was with Sandor, she was never completely sure whose side he was on. At least with Sandor she knew where she stood.

He didn't want to do it, but that didn't make it easier to bear. She hated that she thought him cowardly. He could have at least talked to her first, instead putting her through that bizarre and confusing muddle of withdrawn glances and pointed silence. She didn't even think she'd have tried to talk him out of it. That was what angered her most, the fact that he didn't even explain himself, explain what was happening. He simply cut himself off again.

It wasn't the first time he'd done it, and that in itself pained her deeply. She could not help but remember their return from White Harbor, when he'd gone below as Sandor and reemerged as the Hound. There had been no explanation then, either, but that was before they had recognized what it was that lay between them. Before so many words had been exchanged. The day in the Sept when she had told him that she loved him had changed everything.

He had struggled to reply, but she'd heard the depth of feeling and fear in his voice when he'd managed to croak out the only words he could. Just because he didn't say it completely didn't mean he didn't feel it, and Lenna knew, beyond all reasoning, that he loved her. And it was a misguided sense of duty sprung from that love that made him do what he had. It made her angry.

The Red Keep was more dangerous than it had ever been. She was almost nostalgic for the days when she was simply lonely. She'd never been scared before, not in the visceral, nauseating way she was now. She felt constantly on the verge of vomiting, and from the looks on the faces of even the oldest, staunchest courtiers, they were in a similar state. Add to the general sense of unrest Joffrey's direct threat to her person, and she was practically half-mad with anxiety.

In many ways, she knew Sandor was completely right. Sneaking him into her rooms at night was careless and foolish. Joffrey's sudden interest in her would mean nothing went unnoticed. He'd always carried a strange sort of malice toward her, ever since she'd become Myrcella's tutor, but now she was also the daughter of a northern traitor. A rich and powerful northern traitor. It didn't matter how long she'd lived in the capital, she would always be a Manderly.

That's not why she was furious with him. It had nothing to do with the decision to be more cautious, to avoid opening them both up to discovery. Her anger was predicated on the way in which he took all choice away from her. They all did. When she looked back on her life since that fateful nameday ten years before, she realized that she had not made a single decision for herself since. All her agency was stripped from her, ostensibly for her own good, and she had done just as she was told by every last one of them from the queen, to her father, and now, Sandor.

She didn't know she was pacing until she found herself staring at him on the other side of the door. She didn't even hear his footsteps in the hall until the parcel was slid under her door. She didn't bother to think. She knew it was him, and hot insult was brewing in her stomach at his presumption. How dare he slip a present under her door as if nothing had changed between them, as if he had not spent the last weeks studiously ignoring her despite her presenting being the most endangered she'd ever been? _He made a vow, damnit_. She flung open the door and caught him as he walked away. When she called to him, he turned, and she could tell by the look on his face that he had not expected to see her.

It was the strangest experience. She wasn't herself. She barely registered the harsh words that came out of her own mouth, and certainly didn't recall thinking them. It was like she was hearing them spoken from a distance, and she did not like the cruel woman who made his eyes narrow in hurt. Her conscience was screaming at her to stop, to just let him talk, but her torment had taken over and wouldn't allow sense to reign.

She had craved speaking to him, and now she used the one opportunity she'd been given the drive him even further away. When she was finally in control of herself, numbly horrified at how she'd turned him into a seething mass of pain, his great shoulders heaving with labored breath, eyes glittering and feral, she tried to right the course.

"Why do you do this?" she'd asked. It was something she had always wondered. It seemed like no matter what problem presented itself to them, Sandor always took the most difficult path. "Why do you make everything so difficult? All you had to do was-"

"Argue with you in the middle of the hallway where everyone can hear you? I know I'm a coward, Lenna, but at least I'm not thoughtless."

He was right, she knew he was right, but it still made her pulse rise in indignation. Again, she lost herself. If she was thoughtless, it was because he wouldn't give her the opportunity to speak with him. He'd taken away all of her say in the matter, and this was the only time she'd been given.

"I'm not finished-" she called as he began to walk away from her.

"Yes, we are," he replied. It felt like a physical blow, and she knew he wasn't talking about the conversation. From the look on his face, he did, too. He looked like he might weep. She fought hard against her own tears, and would have welcomed them. It had been weeks since she'd been able to cry, and they would have brought some measure of relief.

When he'd left her, nodding deeply and calling her "my lady," Lenna had almost gone after him. He might have pushed her away again, but she couldn't bear the thought that she didn't remember the last time she had kissed him, had touched him. Surely, he would give her one last moment.

It would have been cruel to both of them, so feeling like her heart had vanished from her chest she went into her room and closed the door. It was then that she remembered the parcel, his words about burning it. She knew she couldn't do that, and frustrated that she couldn't cry, she grabbed the pitcher from the basin and hurled it against the wall. It made a satisfying crash, but she felt no better than she had before. There was nothing to do but crawl into her bed and try to sleep, the parcel thrust unopened beneath her pillow.

She woke the next morning, uncertainty governing every breath. Uncertainty and anger. She was so very, very angry. Angry at him, angry at the king, angry at Cersei. Angry at her father for sending her south as girl, for joining against Robb Stark and leaving her alone in the capital to ride out a war on her own. Angry at Sansa Stark for being so young and naive that she didn't know how risky it was to defy the king, even when everyone else saw how quickly he'd move against you. But most of all, she was angry at herself.

She was angry that she had allowed herself to be manipulated and used and pigeon-holed into an impossible position, trapped between her name and the crown. She did not know what she could have done differently, and she suspected that there was nothing that would have changed the direction of her fate. It had been decided long before, by someone else and for no reason whatsoever. She had no agency, no choice, and it made her feel like some wild animal in a cage. She did not like who they had made her become, but there was no other option. It was either keep on pretending to be who they wanted her to be, or throw herself out the window and into the sea.

So she did as she was told, playing her part with the same alacrity as she always had. She smiled at the queen, gave Myrcella her lessons, and kept an eye on the Stark girl whenever she had the chance. Even surrounded by people, though, she felt terribly alone.

 _Sandor never lied to you about that_ , she thought dispassionately, _he always knew we were just playthings_. She was watching him as he batted a woefully unfit opponent about on the ramparts. This was the third man he'd killed that morning, and she'd forced herself to sit and watch like he was swatting flies instead of people. No, he never lied. He'd told her once that killing was the sweetest thing, and sitting there under the tent with the princess as they watched him nimbly and effortlessly snuff out a trio of doomed knights with his teeth bared in what could almost be a grin, she believed him.

 _How much has changed in a year_.

It was difficult to believe that a year had passed since the last tourney for Joffrey's nameday. Under other circumstances, Lenna might have enjoyed the memories that it stirred, bittersweet as they were. She remembered the way she and Sandor had quarreled, the browned roses scattered on the floor, her tongue curling around that terrible word as she flung it at him. It was the moment she'd known that she could no longer ignore how she felt about him. And he had loved her then, she was sure of it, in that consuming way that he did. Just as he probably loved her now. She didn't think him so faithless as to stop, knew it wasn't a choice. She had tried to stop loving him, to hate him, but it was impossible.

 _So much waste_ , she thought, watching him forlornly from her spot beside Myrcella. The queen had ordered her to stay with the princess for the duration of the event, not wanting the children left with Joffrey on their own. The king had curled his lip, but he'd said nothing. In the weeks since the Green Fork, she'd noticed the king's eyes on her more and more frequently. She did not like the way he looked at her, though she did not know what she'd done to earn his contempt. Granted, she did not know what anyone did, and he reviled them all.

Sandor was flailing away at the smaller knight, his helm glinting dangerously in the midday sun. The other man wouldn't come out of this fight alive, and both of the combatants knew it. Lenna didn't know why he didn't just end it.

 _He's enjoying it too much_.

He knocked the man's shield from his grasp, and with one last blow he knocked the knight over the crenels and into the courtyard twenty yards below. He looked over briefly, his mace dropping to his side. His eyes flickered to hers and she saw the war of pleasure and remorse there. She felt his glance like a dagger in her breast. He'd resolutely avoided her scrutiny for weeks. This was perhaps the first time he'd slipped since she closed her door to him on her nameday. His eyes slid from hers as quickly as was possible, but she saw color rise in his cheek. He was breathing heavily, his teeth bared from the exertion, a hitch in his shoulders that was perhaps from shock or chagrin.

"Well struck, dog," Joffrey cried. His eyes were aflame, as if it had been him who had struck the final blow, and not his guard. He turned to Sansa, grinning. "Did you like that?"

"It was well struck, your grace," Sansa replied, her voice a tremor. The girl was pale. Lenna understood completely. It was one thing, a year ago, to watch knights knock each other about in a tourney, knowing that the chances of them being seriously hurt were low. Ser Hugh had been an awful exception. But the king had been explicit in his instructions for this tournament. Contests were to be to the death.

"I already said it was well struck," Joffrey said, his voice dripping with mockery.

"Yes, your grace," Sansa replied listlessly. Her eyes darted to Lenna, but she dared not smile back.

Sandor returned to them. He'd removed his helm and his hair was sweaty, sticking to the scars. His expression was dark, his jaw tight, and she knew he felt ashamed.

Shame didn't spare the knight laying in the blackpool on the flagstones below. There was no room for remorse or conscience in front of Joffrey.

"Who's this?" Joffrey demanded, his attention seized by the appearance of another knight on the little spit of rampart he'd designated as his tourney ground.

"Lothor Brune, free rider in the service of Lord Baelish," the herald announced, and the knight bowed. "Ser Dontos the Red of House Hollard." No other man appeared, and the herald looked around confused. "Ser Dontos the Red of House Hollard?"

Lenna's eyes flew wide at the name. From the recesses of her brain she pulled the record: House Hollard, of the crownlands, extinct save one, a boy who had been saved by Barristan Selmy whilst the rest of his family was slaughtered.

"Here I am, here I am," a voice called. Out ran a pudgy knight in ill-fitting armor. He didn't look at all like the last scion of an ancient house. He was ruddy faced with thick whiskers trimmed into chops, messy hair, and doleful eyes. "Sorry, your grace, my deepest apologies," he said, bumbling as he made his bow.

"Are you drunk?" Joffrey's voice had taken on that dangerous softness that indicated he was thinking up something unpleasant.

"What, no? No, your grace," Hollard said, looking as though he hoped that was the right answer. "I've had two cups of wine."

"Two cups?" Again, Joffrey's tone made Lenna's skin crawl and her stomach tighten in horrified anticipation. "That's not much wine at all. Please, have another cup."

"You sure, your grace?" Hollard asked, shifting from foot to foot nervously.

"Yes," Joffrey said with a joviality that turned Lenna's stomach. "To celebrate my nameday, have two. Have as much as you like."

The king's face was sporting that little smirk that was the harbinger of trouble. Hollard, in his innocence, took the king's apparent goodwill at face value.

"I'll be honored your grace," he said with another little bow.

"Ser Meryn," Joffrey called. The Kingsguard stepped forward, his own smirk settled meanly across his features. His eyes had beaded in anticipation, and Lenna hated him. "Help Ser Dontos celebrate my nameday. See that he drinks his fill."

Trant approached the knight with gusto, seizing him by the elbow and forcing him to his knees. A horn was brought, and while two others held his arms, wine was poured through it and into the poor man's mouth, forcing him to drink would he could and choke on what he couldn't.

"You can't." Lenna looked at Sansa, surprised at the girl's gumption. Surprised and horrified. _When did we become accustomed to watching men be tortured for entertainment?_

"What did you say? Did you say I can't?" Joffrey asked, his voice sibilant as a snake.

Sansa hesitated only a moment. "I only mean, it would be bad luck to kill a man on your nameday."

"What?" the king demanded. "What kind of stupid, peasant superstition-"

"The girl is right," Sandor rasped. He was looking at no one in particular, and Lenna was shocked that he would take Sansa's part. "What a man sows on his nameday he reaps all year."

Joffrey looked disturbed by Sandor's words, the cocky smile dimmed. He sighed as if torturing a man was a dull chore. Lenna caught his eye, but he quickly looked away.

"Take him away. I'll have him killed tomorrow, the fool."

"He is a fool, you are so clever to see it," Sansa said. She looked amazed at her own daring, but she didn't stop. "He'd make a much better fool than a knight. He doesn't deserve the mercy of a quick death."

Lenna felt a bolt of something like pride at the girl's quick thinking, and her mercy.

"Did you hear my lady, Ser Dontos?" the king called. "From this day you'll be my new fool."

Dontos Hollard was visibly relieved.

"Thank you, your grace," he said, and Lenna saw a trace of gallantry in him. "And you, my lady."

"Beloved nephew," cried a voice, and Lenna felt a trill of real pleasure. She'd recognize his voice anywhere, and she had to force herself not to stand and greet him. Tyrion Lannister came striding toward their party, still clad in armor and surrounded by a fierce group of guards. At the front swaggered a rough looking man of middle years whose eyes immediately met hers. He winked at her, and she couldn't help but cock her brow back at him archly. To her consternation, it made him grin.

"We looked for you on the battlefield and you were nowhere to be found," Tyrion said, making his way immediately to the pitcher of wine that was on the table beneath the tent. Lenna did not miss the mocking in his tone.

"I've been here ruling the kingdoms," Joffrey replied with grandiosity, looking to Sansa. The girl nodded vaguely.

"And what a fine job you've done," Tyrion said over the rim of his goblet. He downed it in one gulp and went immediately to Myrcella. "Look at you, more beautiful than ever," he said, kissing her hand soundly like she was a grown lady. "And you," he said to Tommen, the boy glowing with pleasure, "you're going to be bigger than the Hound, but much better looking." He caught Lenna's eye and there was mischief in his glance. "This one doesn't like me," he continued, looking straight at Sandor.

To his credit, Sandor didn't react in the slightest.

"Can't imagine why," his rough companion replied. He had not yet taken his eyes off of Lenna. To her frustration, she blushed.

"And my dear Lady Helenna," Tyrion said quietly, taking her hand in his. "You are looking as well as ever."

"I am happy to see you, my lord," she replied. "I have been praying for your safe return."

"You do me more kindness than I deserve," he said, his voice tender. She smiled at him, the first true smile she'd found in ages.

"We heard you were dead," Joffrey interrupted.

"I'm glad you're not dead," Myrcella said.

"Me too, dear," Tyrion replied, pouring another measure of wine. "Death is so boring. Especially now when there is so much excitement in the world." His mien became somber as soon as he saw Sansa. "My lady, I'm sorry for your loss."

"Her loss?" Joffrey spat. "Her father was a confessed traitor."

"But still her father," Tyrion said, using that tone he reserved just for Joffrey. "Surely having so recently lost your own beloved father you can sympathize."

Sansa leveled him with that disconcertingly blank expression she had perfected since she'd had to look at her own father's severed head presented to her on a spike. "My father was traitor. My mother and brother are traitors, too. I am loyal to my beloved Joffrey."

"Of course you are," Tyrion replied lowly, all sympathy and indulgence. "Well, enjoy your name day, your grace. I wish I could stay and celebrate but there is work to be done."

"Work?" Joffrey called after his retreating figure. "Why are you here?"

Tyrion flicked his hand dismissively, walking away, his men following behind him. Lenna accidentally looked at the rough man again. He was leering at her, raising his brow in a way that told her he planned on ogling her again later.

The king's banquet was to be that evening, but Lenna was grateful for the stolen hours in her room between tedious events. She barred the door, pulling out the red book of tales she'd brought with her as a girl. It was the only book she'd wanted since learning that her father had answered Robb Stark's call. It was the only thing she had left of White Harbor save the too-small woolen gowns at the bottom of her chest and the dark cloak in her wardrobe.

She sat on her bed with her knees drawn up to her chest like she was a much younger girl. She didn't know why she persisted in reading those stories, they brought only heartsickness. They were lies, beautiful lies, and they stung her deeply.

Sandor XXXII

The little grace was to be sent to Dorne. Sandor heard the news from Joffrey himself, the king unmoved at the prospect of his little sister sold off as a bride to the Martells of Sunspear. The announcement hit Sandor like a morningstar to the breast, jarring him out of his usual impassivity. He turned his head when the king told his court, eyes instinctively searching for Lenna.

She was there with the princess, her face smooth and unreadable, a smile playing about her lips as she congratulated the girl. He wondered if she was as serene on the inside. He doubted it very much. Lenna loved the child as if she were her own, and he was sure she would grieve her departure deeply. It pained him that he would be unable to comfort her. It was a pain that they would each have to bear it alone.

His melancholy at the news of the princess quickly changed to dread. The Kingsguard was assembled when news of the Oxcross loss reached the king as he sat in the throne room. He spent a great deal of time there, but he did nothing but sit and run his damn mouth, his Kingsguard arrayed around him like he was in mortal danger.

Sandor had taken to wearing his own armor again. No one had said a word. He had felt that the other Kingsguard were rather pleased when he stopped. They all knew he wasn't one of them, not really. He kept the white cloak, though, simply because he liked it. The way he looked at it, he deserved to wear it at least as much as Meryn fucking Trant.

Joffrey's face went scarlet when the messenger arrived with the news.

"Dog," he spat. "Bring Lady Sansa to me. And Lady Helenna."

Sandor nodded, trepidation stirring in his gut, but he turned and did as he was bid. Sansa he understood, but if Lenna was called it meant her family had been involved. Ever since the incident on the ramparts, Joffrey had been casting his eye on Lenna with more and more frequency. Sandor didn't like it and felt completely helpless to do anything about it.

The walk to Lady Sansa's chambers seemed to grow longer with each step. Lenna would be with her, most likely. At least he wouldn't have to hunt her down, see her alone. He didn't know how he would face her after so many weeks. Truthfully, he was terrified at the prospect. Their last parting had felt like a severing.

He was relieved that when he knocked on Sansa's door she answered it. She opened the door just wide enough to look out, her eyes meeting his cooly. Neither of them spoke, but after a long moment of staring at each other, Lenna moved back toward the Stark girl, leaving the door open behind her so he could enter.

"His Grace requires Lady Sansa," he growled, stopping as he chewed over the rest of his charge. "And you, Lady Helenna."

Lenna looked at Sansa. The girl had gone white, her blue eyes wide and her face frozen in fear. Lenna closed her eyes briefly, and he knew she was preparing herself. She rose and held a hand toward the girl. Sansa slipped her little white hand into hers and stood, Lenna tucking her fingers into her elbow like they were old friends. Sansa was as tall as she was, likely to grow taller, but all Sandor could see was a frightened child looking to her friend for comfort. Lenna smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes, and patted her hand. The girl still did not move.

"They longer you keep him waiting, the worse it will go for you," Sandor said quietly. This made the girl move, and they walked out the door. Sandor put himself on their right, not trying to antagonize the child with the sight of his face and keeping her between Lenna and himself.

"What have I done?" Sansa asked, more to the floor than to either of her companions.

"Not you. Your kingly brother."

"Robb's a traitor," she said automatically. "I had no part in whatever he did."

"My father and brothers are as well, Sansa, but we will be made to answer," Lenna said bravely.

"They trained you well, little bird," Sandor snorted. He could almost swear that Lenna scowled at him.

They followed behind him, the gold-cloaks surrounding them outside the door. Cold trepidation ensnared his gut again, like a bear trap around his innards. The most unholy yowls were emanating from the throne room, and he saw Sansa Stark hesitate.

Joffrey sat on the Iron Throne, his crown of golden antlers almost jaunty except for the fact it sat above his hard little face. His sharp features were predatory as he watched their approach. A yellow cat lay dying on the floor, the bolt of a crossbow skewering it through the ribs.

"Ladies," he said, a sick grin spreading across his face. Sandor nearly winced, keeping his face stony to prevent the king from reading his disapproval.

"Your Grace," Sansa murmured, her voice a tremor. She fell to her knees.

"Your Grace," Lenna said, much more loudly. He watched as she held the king's gaze except for the moment it took her to make her own curtsey, rising with her shoulders lifted and her chin upraised. He hoped she wasn't going to do or say something stupid.

"Kneeling won't save you now, Lady Sansa. Stand up. You're here to answer for your brother's latest treasons. Both your brothers, in fact. I have received news that congratulations are in order," Joffrey said silkily. He sat up, drawing his leg back from over the arm where it was casually tossed. He didn't bother to stand, but he did lean forward, his hands gripping the arms of the throne, his body taut with glee.

"Your Grace, whatever my traitor brother has done, I had no part, you know that. I beg you, please-" Sansa said. She had remained kneeling on the floor, which Lenna knew would anger Joffrey. He had told her to rise and she had disobeyed. Her pretty face was drawn together, deep furrows across her brow. Furrows a child of thirteen shouldn't have, Sandor thought.

"Your brother, the traitor Robb Stark, has defeated my army at Oxcross. He has killed my grandfather's brother and taken many of his officers prisoner. Congratulations on your victory, my lady."

"Your Grace, it isn't my victory," Sansa said, her voice high and desperate, much as it had been the day she had pled for her father's life.

"And your brother, Lady Helenna, acquitted himself very well, so I'm told. I had not thought House Manderly was a particularly martial family, but apparently I was wrong."

"We are a knightly house, Your Grace, but I fail to see how this is my victory," she said flatly. Her voice sounded like she was just observing the weather.

"You are a Manderly, Lady Sansa is a Stark. This victory falls at your feet, the men of your houses have delivered it to you."

"We are your grace's faithful servants."

"Then you understand that you must account for your treason."

"It is not my treason, your grace," Lenna said. "Not any more than it is Lady Sansa's."

"You both have traitor's blood," the king said sweetly. "Don't you, Lady Sansa?"

"No, your grace," the girl began. She was still on her knees, her face blotchy with crying. "I don't have traitor's blood."

"Are you calling me a liar?" he demanded, sitting on the edge of the throne and leaning forward. "Trant, I believe she called me a liar. She begs for instruction, but leave her face. I like her pretty."

Meryn Trant made his way toward Sansa, pushing Lenna roughly out of his way. He wrenched her up from the floor, leveling his fist at the girl's stomach before kicking her viciously and sending her sprawling. As the girl was trying to pick herself back up, he withdrew his sword and struck her with the flat of the blade, making the girl cry out in pain and surprise.

"Strip her," the king ordered, and Trant did as he was told with feral pleasure in his beady eyes. He ripped Sansa's gown down the back, cruelly tearing the fabric and pulling it down over Sansa's stays. Sandor winced as the knight struck her again, unbalancing Sansa and pushing her to the floor again for another vicious kick.

"Stop!" Lenna cried. Sandor's heart fell to the floor, anger and fear seizing him and propelling him forward a step. His breathing became labored as he watched in mute horror as she went to Sansa, dashing forth and putting herself between girl and the knight. The girl was sobbing, trying to cover herself with her hands, the cloth of her gown in tatters.

 _What are you doing? What have you done?_

"So you volunteer yourself in her place, my lady? How heroic. I told you I'd teach you a lesson once you proved disloyal, which you have. I told Trant to keep her pretty, but I don't care about that with you. No, I want everyone to know that you defied your king. Dog!"

All of the hairs on the back of Sandor's neck pricked up.

 _No, not me. Please don't make me-_

"Your grace?" he asked, slowly turning his head. He felt like he was underwater, being dragged slowly down into the darkness of the deep sea. Nothing felt real.

"She persists in wearing that ugly Northern braid. It displeases me. Cut it off."

Sandor didn't move, looking at the king dumbly, his jaw slack.

"If you don't do as I've ordered, dog, I'll have you bring me her head."

Sandor turned to look at her. For the first time in nearly two months, Sandor and Lenna looked at each other openly. What he found in her gaze brought him no comfort. They were the same eyes, of course, green and gray and flecked with amber, but there was no expression, it was as if something in her had died.

 _The light. The light is gone_.

He made himself walk toward her, each step like wading through mud or quicksand. As he did so, he threw his cloak over Sansa's shoulders. If he was about to commit something so heinous, he could spare that small kindness. The girl wouldn't meet his eyes. He didn't blame her.

When he turned to Lenna, he froze in mute surprise to see that she had knelt before him. Joffrey was watching the spectacle unconcealed relish.

"Well, Clegane?" she asked placidly. Her mask was in place, but this one was different. This one was unnervingly cool and composed, like she was bored instead of about to be publicly shamed. He couldn't breathe, couldn't look away from her face. It didn't even look like hers anymore, unfamiliar and waxen. "Best get it done with. Don't keep His Grace waiting."

He wasn't sure how he removed the dagger from his boot. It seemed to appear in his hand. She flipped the long plait over her back and he took it in hand. He pulled it out taut, sliding his knife gently underneath, almost like a caress. He steeled himself, thinking of her head on a spike. His eyes clenched shut briefly. He severed her hair in sharp, upward slice, the strands splitting beneath the blade like rope fraying. When it was done he was left with her braid in his hand, near-black and glossy, still warm from where it had lain against her breast.

He wanted to weep. She wasn't looking at him but at Joffrey where he sat on the throne with an expression of peevish satisfaction on his face. Her hair seemed to have come alive, as if his knife had set it free. The curls rose of their own accord around her face, brushing her jaw as if buffeted by some intangible wind. No, like she was a mermaid, her hair spread about her as if she were underwater. It leant her face a strange grace, her features sharper than they had been just a moment before. Stronger.

"Have it sent to her father, Hound," Joffrey smiled. Sandor didn't respond, looking down at the rope of hair in his hand. It lay across his palm like a dead snake, limp and lusterless.

"What is going on here?"

 _Too late_ , Sandor thought forlornly. If Tyrion Lannister had arrived a minute earlier, he might have prevented it.

"Uncle," Joffrey replied. "As you can see, I am dealing with a pair of traitors."

"This lady is to be your queen," Tyrion thundered, pointing at Sansa as he spat at the king. Sandor had completely forgotten the girl. She was looking up at Joffrey in terror, her eyes wide and blue and skittish as a colts. She was wrapped in his cloak, huddled on the floor. Lenna waited a moment before she knelt down by the child, helping to draw her to her feet.

"Her brother-"

"She is not her brother, your grace," Tyrion thundered. "And this lady," he said, looking at Lenna. Sandor could see pain and fury in the little lords face. "This lady has been our faithful friend for so many years. What have you done?"

"They needed to be reminded of who was king," Joffrey replied.

"So you have humiliated them in front of your court? The lady who is to be your wife, and a lady who has known you since childhood, who has always cared for you? Is this your idea of kingship?" he demanded.

Joffrey's eyes went dark with rage.

 _Get them out_ , Sandor thought madly.

"Are you questioning the king, my lord?" Trant asked, his hand on his pommel.

"The king is my nephew, I am his Hand. I am _instructing_ him, Trant," Tyrion bit out.

"I don't want instruction, uncle," Joffrey spat back. "Dog, I gave you an order. While you're at it, get them out of my sight."

Sandor thrust his shoulders back, his fist closing tightly around Lenna's plait. He glared at the king as Lenna gathered the girl to her, pulling the white cloak he'd thrown around her shoulders tightly closed. There were silent tears still coursing down the girl's face. Lenna wiped them away with the flats of her palms as she spoke to her softly, nonsense words like she'd use to quiet Myrcella. No one in the throne room made a sound as Lenna slipped her arm around the girl's shoulders and led her up the stairs.

No one followed them except for him, even Tyrion remained. Sandor was vaguely aware that the Imp was standing his ground, staring down the boy on the throne. In other circumstances, he would have wanted to watch the exchange, but now all he could think of was getting Lenna out of the king's crosshairs. The other guards kept their positions, Sandor glaring at them darkly, every muscle in his body challenging them to try and follow. He stalked behind the women through the Keep, keeping his eyes on their backs. Lenna had wrapped both her arms around the girl, one around her back and the other hand pressing the girl's head to her shoulder. Sandor could see the hitch in the girl's back. She was crying.

At Sansa's door, Lenna made to go in with her, but Sandor stopped her with a hand on her elbow. They both looked down at his fingers against her arm, and he snatched it away quickly, his cheeks heating and his throat thickening.

"She shouldn't be left alone," Lenna said. There was no rancor in her voice, but he couldn't meet her eyes.

"Not now, my lady," he rasped, wanting to say her name so badly, knowing he had lost all possibility of calling her by it again.

"She needs me."

 _I need_ _ **you**_ _._

"And you need your head," he replied hotly, his fingers tightening around the hair still clutched in his hand. She sniffed, but laid a kiss on the girl's forehead and shut the door.

Her own room was a short walk away, and she didn't look at or speak to him as he escorted her. He was careful to stay behind her shoulder, not wanting to see her face. Her shorn hair fell like a tangle of weeds, thick and unruly and somehow angry.

At her door, she paused and looked at him. He shrank six inches under her gaze. It was stony and cool, but beneath he could detect so much pain. He hoped she could see the same in his.

"What will you do with it?" she asked.

"Send it to your father."

"He will think-"

"I will make sure he doesn't," he said. It was a small risk, but he'd gladly take it. He did not want to grieve Wyman Manderly more than he had to. He would undoubtedly think she was dead if the damned thing came without explanation.

"Thank you," she said levelly. He winced. He didn't deserve her thanks.

He might have said something else, but he didn't. She went into her room and closed the door behind her. He heard the bolt fall into place.

It all fell on him like an avalanche as he walked to the stables to find a messenger. The nauseating revulsion he'd felt turned into boiling anger. Setting Meryn Trant on Sansa Stark had always been despicable, but to do as Joffrey had just done, to violate the girl in that way in front of all those people was a step too far. And then, to have turned that cruelty on Lenna, the only one of them good or brave enough to protest, and to have made _him_ do that to her. He looked down at her hair, in part grateful that it was all Joffrey had taken, but mostly mourning his role in her humiliation. It had felt like he was taking an irreplaceable part of her, something that was now dead and limp, just like the rope that hung from his fist.

He thrust the braid into a bag and handed it to the runner. It was no longer something beautiful to him. He'd spent years obsessed with it, with running his fingers through it, and now it was macabre, a disturbing thing that he wanted to be rid of. It also looked like his failure. Being tasked with sending it to Wyman Manderly was salt in a very old wound. He remembered the old man's words, how they had given him hope, how he had vowed to protect her.

 _You always said you took no vows. The truth is you can't keep them_.

He hadn't protected her. He'd left her.

 _How? How can you protect her when it would spell death to be found with her?_

The messenger was mounting, preparing to begin the long journey to White Harbor.

"Wait," Sandor rasped. "Tell the old lord something."

"What would you say?"

"Tell him he failed. Just those two words. He failed. Not you. He. He failed. Tell him who bid you say it. Manderly will know what I mean."

The young man looked at him strangely, but he nodded and dug his heels into the horse's flanks, starting up the long road to White Harbor.

He made his way back to the Keep feeling heavy and low. His next post was by the king's chambers, and as he arrived, Tyrion Lannister was leaving the room, followed by the rough guard he'd brought with him from the Riverlands.

"Ah, Clegane," he said, he voice full of restrained anger. "Do be a good dog and watch the door. I've delivered my nephew's nameday presents and I wouldn't want them to get lost."

"Whores," the guard said.

"Bronn, don't be so vulgar," Tyrion replied. "Go ahead, I'll follow. I have business with Clegane."

Bronn looked at Sandor skeptically, but he lifted his eyebrow and went on his way, whistling as he sauntered up the passageway.

"What the fuck has been going on, Clegane?" Tyrion demanded. "Tell me that was the first time my nephew has had Sansa Stark beaten."

"No, my lord," he replied dully.

"And no one has put a stop to it?"

"How, my lord? How can you stop a king?"

"Lenna did," he said tightly.

"And she paid for it," he replied thickly. "And she'll likely pay for it again. And again."

He shuddered to think of what punishments Joffrey would think of to torment her with. He still could not think about what he'd done. It seemed like it had happened in a nightmare, not the waking world.

"And she has no champion now, it seems," Tyrion said, his eyes narrowed. "I admit that I have never liked you, Clegane, and I know that you do not like me, but I never thought you so craven that you would do...would do what you did."

"Better me than Meryn fucking Trant," Sandor replied sullenly.

"What do you mean?"

"The only thing I could do was lessen the pain," he rumbled.

"Physically perhaps, but Clegane, surely you know-"

"Won't speak of that, my lord. Not with you."

"So you have come to an...understanding."

"I wouldn't call it that, my lord," he replied flatly.

"What would you call it, then?"

"I'd call it none of your fucking business," Sandor growled.

Tyrion wiped his hand over his face, looking up at Sandor with an uncomfortable mixture of understanding and disappointment in his eyes.

"She has no one," Tyrion said. "Save you, and now me."

"What would you have me do, my lord?" he asked. It was a true supplication. He had no idea what he was supposed to do. "If I stand between her and Joffrey, he'll make me take her head."

"And you'd do it," Tyrion replied flatly.

"No," he protested immediately, "but what would happen if I didn't? He'd kill me, and then her. What would he think of to torture her before? What the fuck am I supposed to do, my lord? Yes, I hacked off her damn hair, and it was like to kill me, is that what you want to hear? You can stand there looking at me like I'm some pitiful beast all you like, but what in the seven hells was I supposed to fucking do?"

Sandor was breathing heavily, every tendon and bone filled with agitation. His hands had curled into fists and without another thought he brought flesh into collision with stone. The pain ricocheted through his sinews and he was savagely glad to see the blood smeared across his busted knuckles.

"Nothing," Tyrion said, his voice almost apologetic. "I don't know what else you could have done, Clegane. I know it was difficult for you. I have always felt at ease leaving her here, knowing she has you to watch her."

Clegane looked sharply at the little lord.

"I've always known, Hound. From the minute I saw you together, I knew how you cared for her. I can't imagine the agony you must feel right now. It is clear to me that there is nothing you can do to protect her. You are right, you cannot stand between her and Joffrey."

"Then who will?" he demanded, his blood pounding hotly in his head.

"I will," Tyrion said. "And you will not like it. But I ask that you not hate her for it, don't blame her."

The little lord walked away without another word of explanation, leaving a distressed Sandor to ponder what exactly the Imp had meant.

A/N: I know, I know. I just posted on Friday. I had some unexpected time this weekend and I want to get through this part of the story as quickly as possible. I hope the writing doesn't seem too rushed, I'm just as keen as you all are to get them out of this mess. I am, however, offering a carrot. I'm just not going to tell you what kind. Give me another 1-2 chapters and you'll get a little something to keep you going.

I am not prepared to scrap canon entirely, and seeing as how that is the case, I hope everyone understands that this isn't over, not by a long, long shot. There are many tribulations to come. And some joys, as well. After all, we've still got nearly a _year_ before Season 8.

As always, thank you for reading and reviewing! I know I lost some folks last chapter...that made me sad. For those of you in it for the long haul, thank you! I live for your reviews, and I want to hear your feedback. There are a staunch handful of you that leave words every blessed chapter, and I want to make sure you know how much that means to me!


	33. Chapter 33

Lenna XXXIII

"Good morning, my lady."

Lenna looked up from her desk to see an unfamiliar maid standing in her open door. The woman was about her age though much smaller in stature. Her gaze was forthright in a way Lenna wasn't used to in the nearly invisible maids that served the Red Keep. She had a pretty, rather feline face, framed by locks of surprisingly short black hair. Nothing about her posture spoke of a serving-girl. She held herself like the women who earned their keep by pleasing men, a silky confidence in the cock of her hip, a carefully careless draping of her limbs. Lenna immediately guessed that she wasn't really a maid, and she suspected she knew to whom she belonged.

"Good morning," Lenna replied automatically. The woman smiled, entering the room and shutting the door behind her.

"I'm Shae," she said, setting the basket of laundry she carried on Lenna's bed. "I'm to be your new maid."

"I've never had a maid of my own before," Lenna said, cautious and curious about this woman's sudden appearance. Tyrion alone would have sent her, for a double purpose if what she suspected was correct: to keep an eye on Lenna and to keep the girl safe within the walls of the Red Keep. Cersei would not take kindly to Tyrion's whore living off her coffers.

"Well, not just yours," Shae replied breezily. "I'm to serve Lady Sansa as well."

"Who sent you?" Lenna asked directly. She'd been spied on by maids before. It had been her first, Starla, who had handed all of her letters home over to the queen after her mother had died. She'd never bothered getting to know one again, though she couldn't say she blamed the girl anymore. Years in the Red Keep had taught her that choices were a luxury. If the queen bid you do something, you did it, and best not to have too many feelings about it one way or another. Feelings complicated survival. So, she was always pleasant, but the hurt she still felt when she thought about that betrayal was stinging and fresh. She hoped this girl's answer was honest. She could use a friend. And a go-between.

"Lord Tyrion," the woman replied, her eyes rising to Lenna's. A current of quick understanding passed between them.

"I see," Lenna said, rising. If they were to both carry off such a charade, Lenna would help her learn her part. It was clear the woman had never served a day in her life, not as a handmaid. Lenna didn't care, she'd never had much use for maids, but Sansa would notice immediately. The girl still hadn't learned not to ask too many questions. "You'll want me to show you where everything goes, then."

They passed a quarter of an hour going through Lenna's closets and drawers, her schedule and needs. Lenna was frank. She had very little use for a maid except to draw her a bath and ferry her laundry back and forth. This seemed to please Shae.

"Good. Lady Sansa," she said, emphasizing the girl's name with a roll of her eyes, "requires much more. I don't know how I'd be able to keep up with two such mistresses."

Lenna smiled. "Lady Sansa plays at being a grown-up. I think she still believes the queen is her pattern for behavior. You'll be fine. I'll talk to her if need be," Lenna offered. She looked around the room. "I require nothing, you can go if you wish."

"There is one thing I may be able to help with," Shae said guardedly, still not leaving. She was looking at Lenna with a sympathy that made her uncomfortable.

"What's that?" Lenna said, returning to her desk. She didn't like pity.

The woman crossed the room and reached, touching Lenna's uneven hair.

"I can fix this," she said quietly. "Make it better, at least."

"I don't want it to be better," Lenna replied sullenly, not looking at her. It was the truth. In the days since Joffrey had ordered her shamed, Lenna had come to think of her shorn hair as something to be proud of, bear with dignity. Joffrey had taken nothing from her that day, in fact he had given her a gift. He had made her sympathetic to even the most loyal of his retainers. Sansa had given her full accounts of the courtiers disgust at Joffrey's actions, and Lenna had heard the whispers herself.

"Don't you?" Shae offered. "Lord Tyrion said…"

"Ah, Lord Tyrion wants you to fix it, does he?" Shae looked back at her with her large dark eyes, but she said nothing. "Very well. Do it then."

Shae made quick work of evening the choppy pieces out so they lay in some semblance of order around Lenna's face. While she had thought to wear them as a badge of honor, a visual reminder of what Joffrey was capable of, she decided Tyrion was right. They'd been lopped off because she had stood against the king in first place. It was best not to prod the little lion. He'd been sharpening his claws too much of late.

She didn't like what the maid did, but she didn't hate it either. She felt curiously light without her hair, but also terribly exposed. She was cold, unused to the feeling over air against her skin. Even when she had braided it, coiled it around on her head, it had never left her so bare. Looking at it made her melancholy and angry in turns, and when Shae was done, Lenna let her go.

"Tell Lord Tyrion that I'm fine," she said as the girl was leaving.

"I will," Shae replied without hesitation, stopping for a moment to look back at her. Their smiles mirrored each other, little sly upturns of the lips. No secrets, then. Lenna liked her a little for her candidness.

Cersei was not as circumspect about the previous days events. She tutted and fussed over her hair, even reaching forward and touching one of the shorn curls, her brows furrowed. Lenna wondered what she was really thinking, never sure if her concern was genuine or not. When Tyrion appeared in the doorway to his sister's study, he, too, had reached out and run a hand over her hair, the look of chagrin and dimly-veiled rage hard in his eyes. Lenna felt more than ever that she was a Lannister pet.

"If you'll excuse us, Lenna, I need to speak with my sister alone."

She surprised herself by going to the Sept. It had been most of a year since she'd regularly gone to pray, and she couldn't put her finger on exactly why she had stopped. She figured it had something to do with the horrible feeling that the gods had turned their backs on her, or, worse, that they didn't exist at all. Sandor had always scoffed a bit at her piety, insisting that the gods couldn't be real, not and allow all the evil in the world. She'd been steadfast in her faith, but now, looking up at the cold, stone statues with their sightless eyes, she wondered if he was right.

She tried to pray anyway. She took her time, starting with the Father and working her way through the Seven as she had always done, lighting her three candles. One for the royal family. One for House Manderly. One for Sandor Clegane.

The first candle was a challenge. It was difficult to pray for the king, but Lenna swallowed the impulse to pray for his death and instead asked for his heart to be changed. She knew it was foolish and unlikely, but she couldn't think of anything else to do, and she was trying so very hard not to let even her thoughts turn traitorous. Praying for her family was easier, but fraught with horrible thoughts of what the delivery of her braid would do to them. She had no idea what message Sandor had been able to send with it, but no matter what, it would bring great distress and heartache.

It was the third candle where she fell apart.

Praying for Sandor Clegane had not begun after the awful episode at Darry. She'd lumped him into her prayers for years, but now, the chill wind on her neck a stark reminder of what he'd been forced to do, how they'd both suffered, she found herself overcome with fear and grief.

She couldn't be angry with him. She'd never been able to stay angry with him for long. She was too painfully aware of his constant agony. She'd never met a man so conflicted before. For all of his physical strength he was powerless in so many ways. He could no more change his fate than she could, stuck in their roles and bound to see them through no matter the outcome. The previous day in the throne room, he'd tried to take control, and it had been wrested from him as easily as a toy from a child's hand, and he'd been presented with a far less desirable alternative.

And hadn't it been the same for her? She'd stepped in to try and help Sansa Stark, and instead had incurred the wrath of the king on herself. Sansa would not be struck again, at least not in public, she was sure of that after Tyrion's appearance, but Lenna had made Joffrey angry. He knew few emotions: greed, rage, and sick pleasure. She knew that he'd find ways to hurt Sansa that weren't so easy to interrupt, ones that did much more lasting harm. She could already see the girl breaking, splintering before her eyes, and she had no idea how to help her bear up.

She didn't regret what he'd done to her, not for herself. She didn't care about her hair. Hair would grow back. But she knew, despite the fact that they hadn't spoken or even looked at each other in weeks, not since that awful day in the hallway, she knew that Sandor would likely blame himself for what had happened. She could practically feel the horror radiating from him, his fingers so tight and tense that she could see every tendon stretching beneath his skin. She'd been cold to him, kneeling there on the floor, but if she hadn't, she might have done something even more rash.

Like tell him it was alright, to do what he had to do, that she forgave him.

She couldn't tell him that, and it was eating away at her slowly, waves lapping at unsteady cliffs that were already threatening to crumble. She knew that she had been treading a very dangerous path for the previous weeks, unable to harness the anger that still burned, cold and sere and perpetual. It had made her reckless in ways she had never been before, and without her intention, she'd risked them both.

None of the anger was for him. It had been at first when he'd taken away the decision, choosing to end things without so much as warning her beforehand. She was glad she hadn't had the opportunity to speak with him after. She was quite sure she would have said despicable things, her mind lobbing the epithets she had always detested at him from the moment she woke until she fitfully fell asleep. Her anger had been spent in a day, turning into what could only be termed bereavement. She mourned for him as if he had died. It felt as if he had, and she had the strangest sensation that she had, too. For years, she had feared she was losing herself, the girl who had come to King's Landing. It had finally happened, that person slipping away like smoke, girlish beliefs replaced with a harsh understanding of reality. The moment he'd ended things between them, that girl was gone, and so was Sandor.

The night before she'd dreamt of her mother. It was strange. She hadn't had such a dream in years, since she was in White Harbor. Those had been happy dreams, no doubt brought on by her stirring memories of being at home. This one was not, she could only term it a nightmare. In it, her mother's shade had chastised her, showing her visions of what would come to pass if she could not regain her self-control: Sandor's head on a spike, her nieces abused and imprisoned, her brothers dead, her father a lord of bones.

Her mother. Adalyn Locke had trod these same halls. Lenna barely ever thought about it, but with the remembrance of her dreams, she imagined her mother kneeling in that very spot, her own eyes cast upward at the gods. Her mother, who never spoke of her time as a lady-in-waiting, as a companion to Joanna Lannister, but who most certainly understood this convoluted and dangerous game they were all playing. She had survived, she had escaped, and Lenna knew that all of her snippets of advice had been born of this experience. Anger did not serve her, patience did. Persistence did. Discipline did.

 _And what of hope?_

She was at the feet of the Mother now, not quite remembering when she'd lit the trios of candles that glinted in the dim Sept. Now she attended them more carefully, needing to believe in the Mother and her mercy more than ever. She lit the first two with intent, her prayers diligent. When she came to the third, she lit it reverently, settling onto the kneeler and letting her thoughts turn on him and praying that he could forgive her, and forgive himself.

"Am I still in your prayers, I wonder?"

Lenna's lips tugged upward at the sound of his voice, but it was a weak smile. She held up a finger to indicate that she would finish her prayers first. She'd been in contemplation for the better part of a half hour, but she was not done sending up her supplications on Sandor Clegane's behalf. Or her own.

She rose when she was finished, not at all surprised to find Tyrion right at her elbow. For such a little person, he made a lot of noise, so unlike Sandor who for all his bulk could walk as stealthily as a cat.

"Of course, my lord," she murmured, her smile strengthening under his affectionate gaze.

"Would you walk with me, my lady?" he asked, sweeping his arm in a courtly fashion she knew to be half playful. "I'd like some fresh air."

She followed him to the side door, dismayed to see his new guard lounging against the wall in wait. He smirked at her, but Lenna said nothing, following Tyrion toward the gardens. Tyrion made passing conversation as they walked, asking about the weather, looking at the blooms, but Lenna knew he did nothing without purpose. There was something he wanted to say to her, and she wished he'd just come out with it.

They paused on the terrace overlooking the sea, and Lenna could see Tyrion's worry in the hunch of his shoulders and the tension in his fingers. His guard, however, leaned back against the stone railing with his thumbs tucked into his trousers, looking more at home in an alehouse or an alley than the royal gardens.

"As pleasant as your company is, my lord," she said, turning to face Tyrion, "I think there are concerns you wish to discuss with me that have nothing to do with the humidity or the trees."

He looked at her askance. "You wound me," he said, then glanced at his guard. "I told you she was clever." The guard rolled his eyes. "Lenna, I don't believe I introduced you, but this is Bronn. He was my champion in the Eyrie."

"Ser Bronn," Lenna said. "I'm sure I speak for all of us when I thank you for bringing Lord Tyrion back to us."

"Not a ser, not yet," he said weightily, "but I'll take your thanks."

"Bronn, this is Lady Helenna Manderly of White Harbor. She's a very old friend."

"Not that old," he smirked, a twinkle in his eye that made the tip of her nose go pink.

Tyrion shot him a glance that spoke more clearly than any words could that she was off limits. Lenna was grateful she hadn't had to do it herself. However, she knew when Tyrion was avoiding his task and fixed him with her best no-nonsense gaze.

"What do you wish to discuss, Tyrion?" she asked.

He looked up at her from under the tawny mop of his curls and sighed.

"As you know, Lenna, we have brokered a marriage for Myrcella in Dorne," he said at last. Lenna's face dropped.

She'd almost forgotten. She felt the stab of pain initially beneath her breastbone, but it seemed to fade into a sharp, spreading ache through all her limbs. First, she'd lost Sandor. Now, the princess.

"A very fine match, I'm sure," she said, casting her gaze downward and feeling long-absent tears pricking her eyes. It surprised her how little she cried now. They used to flow like springs.

"It is for the best," he said carefully, "though I know we shall all miss 'Cella keenly. You especially, I would think." She nodded sharply. Tyrion straightened his shoulders and tilted his chin. "We have every reason to believe that Stannis Baratheon is planning to go to war to seize the throne from King Joffrey. Sending Myrcella to Dorne now will ensure her safety."

"Is it certain? Will he attack King's Landing?" Lenna asked, her eyes narrowing. She knew little about what was happening outside the walls of King's Landing that Cersei didn't tell her directly. News of the Oxcross had been a shock to them all.

"He is at Dragonstone," Tyrion replied, "and he is amassing a fleet. Not as large as ours, but it means war on two fronts. The capital is significantly weaker than it should be in such a situation. Even Cersei agrees that Myrcella should leave as soon as she is readied."

"Of course," Lenna said, thinking that very moment would not be soon enough.

"I wish to send you with her."

Lenna felt his words like an icy gush through her gut. Tyrion was looking at her solemnly, his hands tucked behind his back. He had an odd way of looking at her that made her feel like he already knew what she would say. His eyes were already full of pained disappointment.

"No," she said plainly, shaking her head. "No, my lord."

"Not so clever then," Bronn quipped, cocking his brow. Lenna had quite forgotten he was there. The sellsword was looking at her appraisingly, but this time she could see a keen intelligence in his expression that proved he wasn't just Tyrion's muscle. The man was shrewd. She felt her lips quirk against her will, but he pursed his lips and looked away.

"Lenna," Tyrion said, his tone placating and infuriating. He came to her and reached out, taking her hand in both of his. "Your father and brother are branded as traitors. You are, of course, loyal and we know that. We wish to protect you, and Dorne would be the safest place for you. You'd be far away from all of this...deceitful mess. Think of it, living among all that sunshine, the lemon trees…"

Lenna shook her head indulgently, trying to find a better way to explain that there was nothing he could do or say that would convince her.

"Lenna, please, think on it. It wouldn't be forever-"

"You don't know that," she said quickly. "If I go, I may never return. If Stannis Baratheon does attack King's Landing, it may be years before it is safe to come back. No, I'll not leave."

"I gave you credit for better sense," Tyrion said, pumping his hand emphatically. "After what happened, I would expect you to know better than to try and continue to ride it out."

"It's just hair, Tyrion," she said dully.

"He'd have taken your head, Lenna. You angered him-"

"I did nothing wrong-"

"You don't have to," Tyrion exclaimed. "Joffrey doesn't have a code of right or wrong, he just knows when he doesn't like something, and his first response is to rid himself of whatever it is. Yesterday afternoon it was you."

"I was protecting Sansa Stark," she said heatedly. "No one else would. Were we supposed to continue to watch Meryn Trant beat her. Tyrion, she is a _child_ -"

"Yes, and you are a lady, but it didn't stop him, did it? You may have been protecting Sansa, dear Lenna, but who will protect you?"

She looked back at him stonily. They both knew that in the past they'd had a satisfactory answer. _He_ would have, but on that afternoon in the throne room he had been utterly powerless.

"He can't protect you anymore, Lenna. You both know that. Would you have him be used against you again?"

"I do not blame him," she said brokenly. "He did what he had to do."

"Yes," Tyrion said, "but you must know that if the king _had_ ordered your head, he couldn't have done it. He couldn't have done it, Lenna, and you'd both be dead. At least in Dorne you'll be _alive_." He took her hand again squeezing it ardently, his eyes somber. "I can do nothing for the Stark girl, but I can for you."

"Alive," she said bitterly. "As alive as I've been for the past, what, ten years now?

"The alternative is far worse," he said lowly. "It will not be quick. You know that."

"My lord, I will not go to Dorne," she said icily, drawing back her hand. "Ransom me home if you must."

"No," he nearly shouted. "You know that is impossible." He sighed heavily, raking stubby fingers through his hair. "There is one other possibility, but it is not my preference."

"What then?"

"Marriage," he said flatly, his nostrils flaring.

Lenna's heart stuttered. She already knew the answer.

"To?" she asked tightly.

"Isn't it obvious?" he asked, laughing mirthlessly. Lenna couldn't move, couldn't think. She should be grateful, but all she felt was pain. "Well?" he asked, his eyes stony. She loved him for knowing how difficult this would be for her. "Will my lady do me the honor of accepting my hand, my titles, and my lands in matrimony?"

"Aye," she replied woodenly. He nodded as if a verdict had just been read. "On one condition."

"Yes?"

"A long betrothal. I do not wish to be wed until after this business with Stannis Baratheon is at over."

"I can agree to that," he replied. "I know it is not I who you wish to wed, Lenna. I am sorry for it."

Lenna nodded, noticing Bronn was watching them with increasing fascination. He had folded his arms across his chest, leaning against the wall, his eyes darting between them. She blushed, wondering how much he had figured out.

"Cersei-" she whispered harshly.

"Will not oppose it."

"How are you so sure?" Lenna asked.

"Easy," he replied. "She was the one who suggested it to begin with." Lenna's stomach fell to her feet. "I don't know how, and I don't know why, but you've made my sister love you. As much as she loves anyone except the children. When I suggested sending you to Dorne, I think she would have struck my head from my shoulders if she could have."

Lenna nodded slowly. "Tyrion, what will become of Sansa Stark?"

"She is Joffrey's betrothed. For now."

She cleared her throat, her mind a muddle. "When will we...announce it."

"As soon as we have the king's permission. I would prefer it to be tomorrow."

 _No time_ , Lenna thought. _No time for amends. No time for explanations_.

Sandor XXXIII

Small council meetings were usually terribly boring. He found no pleasure in listening to the collection fat lords bicker with each other and the cunt-king. Granted, he found little pleasure in anything anymore. Not even knocking heads together in the alehouses brought him satisfaction. Ale didn't, either. There was no peace in his bunk at night, no true sleep but he did dream. When they came, they started out well enough. He had all of the old visions, her in his bed, with their children, on their ramparts. Then her laughing face would be replaced with the stony visage of her dead mother, and he'd look down to see his knife in his hand again, her braid laid across his other palm, but now the knife was bloody and the rope of hair felt heavier than it should. He'd wake in a cold sweat, the chasm of helplessness opening like an old wound anew each time.

He was exhausted, but he kept himself upright and moving forward. He was prepared for another mind-numbing morning for in-fighting, so when he entered the council chamber and saw Lenna there at the table, he was completely unprepared. She refused to look at him, and he felt as if his chest was caving in on itself.

He had not seen her since he'd taken her back to her rooms, her hair in his hand. He had not wanted to see her, and he arranged it so he wouldn't be guarding at dinner banquets, asking for that time to be in the training yards. The king had protested, but he reminded the boy that he'd be no good if he didn't keep up his physical stamina. Joffrey didn't seem to understand that there was a correlation between discipline and prowess, and many of his guards weren't training nearly enough. The cunt-king finally relented, much to Sandor's relief. He couldn't bear to look at her, and he was desperate to avoid her.

It was shocking for him to see her with her hair shorn and wild about her face, his heart rattling against his ribs. _You did that_ , he thought sullenly, _you made her look like that._ Her face, still lovely, had gone hard. All he could think was that she had the same look as Cersei Lannister.

"Good morning, your grace," Tyrion Lannister said, stepping away from a side table. Sandor hadn't even noticed him, too focused on Lenna to have properly taken in his surroundings.

"Why is she here?" Joffrey sneered, throwing himself into his seat at the head of the council table. Cersei sat to his right, her hands folded ceremoniously in her lap.

"We have something to discuss with you, regarding Lady Helenna," Cersei replied.

"Get on with it then," the king replied. "I'm sure we have more important matters to attend to." He looked around the table at Varys and Pycelle, but they kept their faces carefully blank. Only Baelish smirked.

"Lady Helenna has been with us in King's Landing for nigh ten years," Cersei began. "She has served this family faithfully as Myrcella's tutor, but now the princess is to be sent to Dorne. We had thought perhaps it time to allow Lady Helenna to wed, to have a family of her own."

"She's a bit old, don't you think? Who would want her?" Joffrey said, cocking an eyebrow. Sandor wanted to strangle him. It would be so satisfying to watch the vicious gleam fade from his eyes.

"I would," Tyrion said cheerfully. Sandor stopped breathing, feeling for all the world like he'd been struck by the bolt from a crossbow. He wanted to be anywhere else, anywhere but there having to listen to everything he'd feared come to pass. "Lady Helenna has always been a friend to me," Tyrion continued, "and I am not getting any younger myself. She is lovely, intelligent, and high-born."

"Her father and brothers are traitors," Joffrey replied, spit flying from his lips.

"But she is not," Tyrion replied. "And when we win this war, she would be the legitimate heir to White Harbor. Once your vengeance is exacted."

Sandor's eye was drawn toward her against his will, and he was ferociously glad to see misery written in her features, noting the strain on her face as she fought against letting her distress show on her face. Her eyes, even in profile, were hard and feral even as the rest of her face was smooth with repose. He knew he well enough to see how unwelcome the conversation was to her, and it gave him a small measure of relief.

"She's not even from a Great House," the king said.

"No," Tyrion replied slowly, "but she is from a wealthy one. Lady of one of the five great cities of the Seven Kingdoms. Our marriage will unite two of our great ports. She will be Lady of Casterly Rock and Lady of White Harbor. A very powerful combination, indeed."

"But-"

"You are to wed Lady Sansa," Tyrion continued quickly, pretending not to hear the king's interjection. "In an effort to restore unity to the Seven Kingdoms, you are going to take to wife Robb Stark's sister. What difference is there in me marrying Lady Helenna? It will be to the same end, will it not? An increased unity of our kingdom, peace in the realm?"

"My son," Cersei said, laying her hand on Joffrey's wrist. "Lady Helenna is loyal. She has always been true, and she would be a fine Lady of Casterly Rock."

Joffrey paused for a moment as if turning the idea over, but Sandor felt like someone had taken grip of his entrails when the boy emphatically shook his head.

"No," the king said firmly. "I do not like her and I will allow traitor's blood to taint our family."

"Lady Helenna is not a traitor," Tyrion said, his tone taking on that cajoling quality that irked Sandor on good days. Now he heard desperation in it, the little lord's plan not going the way he expected.

"I'm the king, am I not?" Joffrey demanded. "I said no. There will be no more discussion on the matter. If you are so insistent that Lady Helenna be married, perhaps we can find another more suitable candidate."

"I wish to keep her near," Cersei started, but even the queen looked taken aback by the rancor on Joffrey's face.

"I don't care what you want, mother," Joffrey replied. "But all this talk of marriage has given me an idea. You insist that Lady Helenna is a woman of quality. Her house is wealthy, and should she become its heir, it would do for her to be married to a strong man. A certain one of our bannermen, a knight even, has distinguished himself in our service in the Riverlands. I am of a mind to give him Harrenhal as a reward, seeing as how my father attainted him. Why not a noble wife, as well?"

Sandor's blood ran cold, and he had the strangest feeling that he was falling. He momentarily lost his composure, feeling all of the wind rush out of him in one great breath, sagging against the wall at his back. Everyone else in the room had gone still, their eyes darting between Lenna and the king like lizards.

"You speak of Ser Gregor Clegane," Tyrion said numbly. "Surely, Lady Helenna has done nothing to warrant such a fate."

"It should be an honor for her to join with such a knight. A servant of the realm," Joffrey replied, his eyes glittering dangerously. "She'll be the mistress of a fine Keep, the largest in all the Seven Kingdoms."

"You do honor me, your grace."

All eyes returned to Lenna. She sat serene and fair-faced, keeping her regard steady on the king.

"You consent, then, my lady?" the king asked, the tilt of his eyebrow as devilish as it was jaunty.

"If it is your will, your grace."

Sandor felt like his insides had filled with ash. It filled his lungs, stung his eyes, choked his mouth and throat. He no longer worried about her head on a spike. Now he thought about her in the cold ground, bloody and bruised, surrounded by silence and mouldering. Gregor had taken two wives before and they had both ended that way. They'd both gone into the ground unmourned and unexplained, their deaths mysterious and unmarked.

"Good," the king said, slapping his thigh. "I'll write to grandfather directly. He will take charge of the matter. He has been ever so complimentary of Ser Gregor. Won't she make your brother a fine wife, dog?"

Sandor looked at the king through the lank fall of his hair and made no reply, merely grunted. The king could take it however he chose.

"You may go, my lady," the king said, his entire demeanor ringing of false kindness. His eyes had taken on reptilian glint of his grandfather as he twisted a ring on his finger.

"Your grace," she murmured, her lips white, dipping a curtsey and quickly leaving the room.

The rest of the council sat in stunned silence, almost as if afraid to breathe.

There was nothing he could do. When he was released from duty, he thought to train, but he found himself walking aimlessly around the Keep until well after the evening banquet had ended. On another pass through the Holdfast a strong arm stopped him with a jab to the shoulder.

"Where've you been?" Bronn asked, stepping out of an alcove. "I've been trying to hunt you down for ages."

"Leave me the fuck alone," he replied harshly, the words more growls in this throat than language.

"Lord Tyrion wants to see you. Immediately."

Sandor's scowl deepened further and he followed the sell-sword toward the Tower of the Hand. The little he'd seen of the man had proven him a cocky, no-bullshit sort. He smirked and mocked and badgered, his self-assuredness irksome. His thumbs were still looped through his belt, but Sandor noted the droop in his shoulders, the downcast eyes and the dark expression on his rugged face. He figured he looked much the same.

Tyrion Lannister was pacing before his hearth, an empty glass of wine in his hand. He took a deep breath when Sandor entered behind Bronn, placing the glass on a side table and clasping his hands behind him.

"There you are, Clegane."

"Aye, my lord," he replied shortly. "What do you want."

"Apparently it doesn't matter what I want," Tyrion replied lightly. Sandor wasn't in the mood for humor.

"You said you'd protect her," Sandor barked. The simmering anger and festering torment were fomenting.

"I tried," Tyrion replied. "I had no idea Joffrey would be so opposed, that he would-"

"Send her like a damn lamb to slaughter as my brother's bride? He will kill her."

"I know," said Tyrion hollowly. "My sister and I have been discussing the matter at length this afternoon."

"And what have you and your sister decided?" Sandor demanded derisively.

"We have both written to our father to voice our staunch opposition for the proposal. ANd to put forth another candidate, one we both feel would be better suited to the lady, and would keep her safe."

Sandor felt every hair on his back and neck stand up, like needles across his skin.

"Who?"

"Why, you, of course," Tyrion replied. "We simply suggested the exchange of one brother for the next."

"I'm Kingsguard," he ground out.

"You've take no vows."

"I have no lands."

"Your brother is still attainted, and he will receive Harrenhal at the war's conclusion. Your pile of rocks is still your own."

"What do you think he will say?"

"I wish I knew," Tyrion replied. "Father was always fond of Lenna. I don't think he'd like to harm her, but I know he will see it as...an opportunity."

"To do what?"

"Put the screws to Wyman Manderly."

"How?"

"We need more ships if we are to fight Stannis Baratheon. Father may try to use her as a bargaining chip. Only time will tell."

"And in the meantime?"

"We wait," Tyrion replied dolefully.

"Who is with her?" he asked, suddenly fearful that she was alone. He hadn't liked her stillness in the council rooms, the unearthly calm she'd managed to maintain.

"She won't answer her door. Shae and Lady Sansa have both tried."

"Can I try?" he asked. Under other circumstances, he knew it would be out of the question. But perhaps in light of the afternoon's events, Tyrion would relent.

Tyrion looked at him flatly. "Take Bronn. He can stand guard."

Sandor nodded, and together the two men made their way through the darkened Keep.

Arriving at her door, Sandor knocked once. To his relief, he heard the latch release and the door creaked open. With a glance at Bronn, he went in.

She had already returned to her window, looking down on the sea. The casement was open, the wind stirring the little curls around her face. She wasn't facing him, but her body thrummed with awareness of him. They hadn't been alone together in months. It was as if something was pulling him toward her, a winch winding that cord he'd always felt was strung between them, and without thinking he made his way toward her until she was only an arm-length away.

"Lenna," he said softly, and she turned to look at him. He'd never seen her look so empty, her agile features still, her skin ashen. Her eyes were large and liquid, utterly vacant. He wondered if she actually saw him. "Lenna, are you alright?"

He was barely able to catch her as her knees gave out. He slowed her descent to the floor by catching her around the waist. She was limp in his arms, only her eyes moving, resting on his. They were still blank, and they frightened him.

"Lenna," he said quietly, moving to prop himself against the wall beneath the window, bringing her between his legs and settling her against him. "Lenna, Tyrion and the queen, they have a plan. They won't let it happen. I promise."

"No promises," she whispered. "I want no vows."

"I swear to you," he said, hoping what little of her was with him could hear his sincerity, "I will do anything I have to in order to keep him from you. If it means I kill him myself."

"No vows," she said, her voice stronger. "I can't bear it, Sandor."

"You can," he said, resting his hand along her jaw, turning her face to his. "They have a plan. They've written to Tywin. He'll put a stop to it."

"For what price?" she asked.

"I don't know," Sandor replied in a trembling whisper. "But Lenna, you're not on your own. Surely you know that you're not on your own."

She looked up into his face, a tiny flicker of something in her eyes. She exhaled sharply, her breath like an arrow, and without blinking she cried. She stared at him, her whole body shaking as if with fever, the tears pouring down her face, her mouth strained open in silent screaming. Her shoulders were rigid with tension as he carefully pulled her toward him, his great hand spanning the curve of her skull. She stayed stiff against him, but when he pressed his mouth to the top of her head, her little fists came up and bunched in his tunic. Each sob wracked her, reverberating through him with surprising force. He could feel her desolation in his bones, as if they were hollow.

She was usually the one comforting him, she was the one who reached out to him first when they quarreled. But they hadn't quarreled. When he had ended things between them, he had never imagined that things could get worse than they were. Joffrey's threat had then been made real, Sandor still able to recall precisely how it had felt to cut of her hair in the throne room, the locks splitting under the sharp edge of his knife feeling the threads of his control as they were severed. He'd always felt strong, able to dictate his own terms, but where she was involved there was no semblance of determination. His former frustration, the way he felt she was batted about like a cat's favorite toy by the Lannisters, that all paled now in the face of Joffrey's cruelty.

She had quieted against him, gradually sitting up and wiping her eyes with the backs of her hands. Her face was red and blotchy, her nose shiny and swollen, her eyes a bright green and rimmed with red. He couldn't resist dragging his fingers along her jaw.

"I won't let him have you," he said lowly.

"No," she replied stonily. "I won't either." He looked at her quizzically and she laughed. "I couldn't bring myself to do it," she explained, nodding to the casement. "But I will if I have to."

"Don't you fucking dare talk like that," he growled. "Never say that again."

"Fine," she replied tiredly. "I won't say it."

He took her meaning immediately, grasping her head between both of her hands.

"You're not to even think it," he said lowly. "Lenna, you can't give up hope. You can't leave me."

She looked at him and to his surprise she let out laugh that could have been a sob. "Gods, you know things can't get any worse when you're the one telling me to have hope."

His own mouth quirked for an instant, and he was relieved to see Lenna again, not the broken, hollowed-out shell he'd found when he walked in the door.

"Bed," he said, nudging her to stand.

She didn't bother to take off her gown, sliding under the quilt and turning to lie on her stomach.

"Stay with me," she murmured.

He passed his hand over her curls. They twined around his fingers. "I can't," he choked. "I want to, Lenna, but I can't."

She closed her eyes, a tear running over the curve of her cheek, absorbed into her pillow.

He ran his fingers over her cheek, swiping the wetness away with the pads of his fingers. He was hesitant as he bent forward, ghosting his lips over the path they had run, leaving the briefest kiss on her cheek.

She sighed and closed her eyes.

He felt like he'd just trained for an afternoon when he closed the door behind him, finding Bronn slumped against the wall outside.

"I need a drink," Sandor said. The sell-sword nodded, and the two men made their way out of the Keep and in the direction of Flea Bottom.

Sandor hadn't really expected the man to accompany him, but he found he didn't hate the idea. In any other situation, he would probably hate the man. That was the trouble with encountering people too like yourself in some ways. The hard-bitten man had that same lust for survival he'd always suffered from, the intent drive to wake just one more morning. Bronn seemed to have accepted it. Sandor had always resented it. He certainly resented it now.

"How's the lady?" Bronn asked, looking at Sandor over the rim of his tankard. His bravado was put away, and Sandor couldn't detect the smallest hint of mockery in his face. He might have liked him for it.

Sandor shook his head. He couldn't put into words what he'd found in Lenna's rooms.

"How are you?"

The question repelled him. He sat back, stretching his hands out along the table.

"Don't fucking pretend like you've no stake in it," Bronn said in exasperation. "Lord Tyrion told me everything."

"He did, did he?" Sandor asked calmly. He was feeling anything but calm.

"And even if he didn't, think I'd stand watch while _you_ of all people went to see a woman in the middle of the night and _not_ figure out what was going on?" Sandor grunted, drinking deeply. "I have to ask, though."

"What?'

"How did you manage to convince that lady that she's in love with you?"

"I don't know," he replied without thinking. "Never figured that one out."

"She won't even look at me," Bronn said, sounding miffed. Sandor felt his gut clench with satisfaction at the same time that his blood boiled at the insinuation that the sell-sword had even tried to get her attention. He didn't want the other man sniffing around her. "And I'm much better looking, if I do say so myself."

Sandor grunted, wishing he'd shut up. He wanted to murder him. He planned it in a trice. He'd grab him by the throat and haul him across the table. He'd use the base of the tankard to bash his skull in, and he'd break his neck for good measure.

"Does she know what you are?" Bronn asked, interrupting his imaginings.

"What?"

"What you are. Does she know that you're the same as me?"

"And what exactly is that?"

"A killer," Bronn said, without even a trace of feeling. He said it like it was any other profession, a smith or a farrier or a carpenter. Sandor looked back at him woodenly.

"She knows." _She knows but she doesn't understand_.

"What are you going to do?"

"Nothing for now. But when the time comes, I'm going to fucking kill him."

A/N: Yeah, yeah, I didn't think things could get worse either. It's so strange to me how plans change. I had this bit all worked out, endgame in sight and everything, but it just didn't feel right. I even reached out to some of you to walk through it, and it STILL morphed into this. Reminder: carrot coming. Promise.

Special shout out to Fukuro Senju and MisFitCarter for their input on this chapter. I'm sorry it happened this way.

Please read and review! I love them, so, so much.


	34. Chapter 34

A/N: I said there'd be a carrot. It's actually a lemon. Rated M. You've been warned.

Lenna XXIV

Numb. She felt nothing else, like her sap had been drained from her and left behind just a husk, a shell. There was no point to worrying, to sobbing, to anything. She had nothing left. All she could do was help prepare Myrcella. The girl was in turns devastated and exuberant about going to Dorne. Lenna tried to feign excitement for the princess as she bubbled over with excitement about her betrothal to Prince Trystane. Lenna found bright smiles and giggles for her, agreeing that the boy was indeed handsome, but in the silence of her rooms, Lenna did nothing but sit or stare out the window, the price of pretending becoming to dear to bear.

No news had returned from Tywin Lannister. Again, and perhaps more potently, she felt like a criminal on the eve of execution. It was a double waiting: word from Tywin coming at an unknowable time, as well as the preparations for the princess' departure. She wasn't sure which one was the cause of her lack of sleep, probably some combination of both.

Lenna was quite sure that she would never see the princess again. The feeling that their farewell would be a final one had taken root in her bones. The child herself had no concept of what her leaving would mean, how permanent it may be. War was looming large on the horizon, that old hurricane about to make landfall. Lenna saw it coming, as surely as the queen did, and while she was glad the child would be safe, far away from them in Dorne, she felt burning pain at the knowledge that it was likely that she would never see the princess again. It was the only thing that cut through the gray nothingness seated in her chest, that scarlet slash of grief.

Lenna tried not to think of such things as she walked with Sansa toward the quay. Though the day was bright, the sky a clear capital blue free of clouds, it might as well have been a Northern midwinter. Lenna had risen early and dressed carefully before walking slowly to attend on the princess one final time, the red book clasped in her hands, an echo of that first day in King's Landing. She wished that time could slow, the past weeks flying by so swiftly Lenna could scarce believe the day had arrived. She grieved that she could not have stretched each and every moment, delaying this inevitable end as long as possible.

The little girl had been a flurry of nervousness, but she had stilled when Lenna entered her chambers. For an instant, Lenna saw the woman she would become, the knowing in her eyes far beyond a girl of ten. The little girl, already tall like her mother, looked at Lenna as if she only just realized that they were to be parted. Lenna smiled at her as kindly as she could, beckoning her to sit next to her on the bed. She held out the red book to the princess, and the child took it in her hands with a furrowed brow.

"I haven't seen this in years," Myrcella said, flipping it open and turning almost immediately to the story of the knight. It pained Lenna to see it, so many memories of kinder times and gentler agonies stealing over her as she looked at the knight and his lady. Myrcella leaned into her side, resting her head against Lenna's shoulder much as she had done when she was little.

"It is my most precious possession, you see," Lenna said, smoothing her hand over the child's shining head. "I brought it with me to King's Landing when I was just a girl, when you were a baby. I want you to take it with you, and if you read it, to think of me."

"I will read it every day," the girl whispered, and Lenna planted a kiss on her head.

"And imagine that I am there with you. Oh, child," she said, her voice cracking painfully. "How we will all miss you."

"I'll miss you, too, Lenna," Myrcella replied. "I wish I didn't have to go."

"Nonsense," Lenna laughed. It was a mirthless sound. "Where you are going is beautiful and sunny, full of interesting people. And you'll meet your prince."

"Will he look at me like that?"

"Like what?"

Myrcella was looking at the book, at the knight in the illustration, but something caught Lenna's eye. Another cut of pain, this one purple and muted, bolted through her breast. Sandor was standing at the door, his hands hanging limply by his sides, his gaze resting on hers exactly like the knight in the illustration. Her heart made a painful leap.

"Of course he will," Lenna replied. "He's good and loyal and true."

Myrcella sighed, burrowing a little more into Lenna, but she kept her eyes on Sandor. His cheek flushed, and she knew that he understood that she was talking to him.

For a long moment, they were as they had been, their strange little trio. The child, the scholar, and the soldier. He looked at her steadily and she felt like she was suffocating, her own misery choking her breath. His gaze was almost physically holding her up, giving her the time to gather her little strength, and when, at last, she was able to straighten her back and breathe normally again, he spoke.

"It's time."

She didn't remember the trip to the quayside, but there was she was, watching Myrcella as she floated away on her little bark arrayed in bright silks, the sun glinting off the gold of her hair. The same sun made Sansa Stark's hair gleam like fire. Lenna was grateful for the girl's arm looped through hers. She had started looking at Lenna with something akin to worship in her eyes since that horrible afternoon in the throne room. She stuck to her like a barnacle at mealtimes and in Cersei's solar, often coming into Lenna's room in the afternoons to chatter away as she bent over her embroidery. Lenna found she didn't mind, craving the distraction as she sat at her desk and struggled with her studies. She found it had become much more difficult to concentrate on anything but her circumstances, but since Tyrion's return he had regularly thrown her assignments in expectation of long discussions. She saw it for what it was, an affectionate attempt to bring her out of her low spirits.

Low spirits. It almost made her laugh. It wasn't low spirits, it was despair. She'd never felt its ilk before. She had lost weight, finding it difficult to eat and sleep, her gowns loose around her ribs in a way that made Shae tut at her. She'd taken to using face cream to cover the dark circles beneath her eyes, but she knew that she fooled no one. Tyrion and the queen both looked at her with growing concern, and Sandor's heart was in his eyes each time their paths crossed. She wanted to be angry, to be upset, anything, but all she felt was the queer, pale hollowness.

Her brow must have furrowed. Sansa reached out and laid her hand on her arm, concern in her blue eyes. Lenna had not spoken of Joffrey's wishes to the girl, had not breathed a word of Gregor Clegane, and she had forbidden Shae from mentioning it in the girl's hearing either. Sansa had enough to worry about on her own without throwing Lenna into her troubles.

The entourage began it's slow wending way back to the Red Keep. At first, Lenna didn't detect anything amiss. She knew, of course, that the queen had ordered the city gates shut to the Riverland's refugees. Lenna found the decision repugnant, but she understood Cersei's reasoning. All indications pointed to the arrival of winter. The influx of people fleeing the violence to the north was straining the city's supplies of grain. There was growing unrest throughout the city, the people furious over the lack of bread, the increased competition for food.

The queen had been wary of the procession's route through the city. They were heavily guarded, Sandor himself behind the king's shoulder. The streets were mobbed, but the crowds had gathered simply to watch them all as they made their way to the quay, the people wanting to bid their princess farewell. It was most touching to see the little girls with their bouquets of wildflowers, the women fluttering handkerchiefs. It was celebratory as much as it was solemn.

But now the streets were noisy, which she expected, and as they got closer and closer to the Keep, the timbre of the voices changed. Instead of excitement, Lenna heard anger. It was astonishing how quickly it grew into a fevered pitch, the voices emerging bodilessly from the masses.

"Monster."

"Pretender."

"Beast of incest."

Then, someone hurled a wad of dung at the king, and it hit him directly in the face. In other circumstances, Lenna might have enjoyed the look of revulsion on the boy's smeared face, might even have laughed, but his next words had her looking frantically for escape.

"Kill them. Just kill them all." His voice was high and vehement, spit flying from his mouth.

The mob surged forward in rage. Sansa was pulled away from Lenna into the crowd, and Lenna tried to find her, dressed brightly in rose, but searched in vain as she found herself carried along in the crowd herself. Hands pulled and pushed at her, tearing at her dress. They didn't seem like people, but one massive, seething beast that was intent on destruction.

She was calling for Sansa wildly, pushing back against the persistent hands, the excruciatingly loud voices, when an arm wrapped around her from behind. She gasped in surprise and dismay, thinking for a moment that this was her end, twisting to face her assailant.

It was Sandor. His face was tight with energy, his eyes wild, his sword poised in his right hand and already slick with blood.

"Run," he cried, pushing her toward safety even as he used his other arm to hew a man in two. The contact of his sword with the man's shoulder made a sickening squelch, and almost instantly the attacker fell to the ground, a geyser of blood spouting from where Sandor had cleaved him asunder. The blood spattered them both, soaking her skirts and bodice, streaming across his face. She shuddered to feel the warmth of it on her skin, reminded for a horrible flash of the Stark guard's blood drying on her neck.

"Why do you not go?" he shouted, grabbing her shoulder with his eyes blazing, the cool grey in startling contrast with the crimson blood and livid scars of his face.

"Sansa," she said frantically. "I do not see Sansa."

"I'll find her," he said, grasping her arm and pushing her none too gently toward the gate. "Now, go!"

She stumbled toward the guards, each step feeling like she was walking against a tide, sluggish and sucking and slow.

Once inside the courtyard, she found a place to sit and wait, aware of how the blood on her skin was drying, contracting and making her feel scratchy and tight. It appalled her, but there was nothing to be done about it.

It seemed like hours, but it was probably only a few minutes. He barrelled through the gate with a figure dressed in pink slung over his shoulder. He paused, looking wildly around for her. When their eyes met across the courtyard, she saw him visibly relax, his face going slack and his shoulders dropping. She found her way to her feet and staggered toward him, then they made their way through the passageways to Holdfast.

Sansa's room was closest. He kicked in the door and laid the trembling girl down upon the bed. Her face was deathly white, her lips bloodless and her eyes wild, her hair tumbling down in ragged copper tresses.

"Stay here. Bar the door to any except me," Sandor rasped, looking down on Lenna with a fervor she hadn't seen since his tangle with his brother. It felt like a lifetime ago. He lifted a hand as if to touch her cheek, but it fell back to his side uselessly. He was looking at her like he would devour her, his eyes burning like embers.

"No one enters until I return," he said, his voice low and urgent.

She nodded, and he pressed his lips together and was gone.

Lenna wiped her hand over her mouth, turning to the girl on the bed. Sansa Stark had been watching them, her eyes wide in shock and fright.

"The Hound…"

"Saved you, my dear," she said quietly. "Are you alright?"

The girl nodded, but then proceeded to vomit on the floor. Lenna cast about for something to at least cover it with, then decided her own dress was the best option. It was saturated with blood from knee to shoulder, and when she pulled it off she found that the blood had seeped into her smallclothes.

"You can borrow one of my shifts," said the tiny voice of the girl on the bed.

Lenna covered the sick with the silk dress, so carefully chosen that morning, then sponged herself off. The blood had caked at her neck and run down her chest, now a brittle, dark brown smudge. Pulling one of the girl's shifts over her head, she used Sansa's glass to clean her face. There was a cut, at least five inches long on her cheek. She didn't remember receiving it, and wondered when it had happened.

"Sansa, do you have salve?" she asked, turning to the girl. Sansa shook her head, and Lenna found a smile for her. "It can wait, then."

The other girl's face began to crumple and Lenna flew to her. As soon as she'd wrapped her arms around her, the other girl disintegrated. She wept into Lenna's shoulder with the terror of a child, her almost-womanly demeanor crumbling into that of a scared girl. Lenna felt tears pricking her own eyes as she listened to the poor child wail, at last spending herself, still hiccuping from the sobs.

"You are safe now," Lenna murmured into the crown of her head, stroking the girl's extraordinary hair.

"We are never safe," the child whispered. "And never will be."

Lenna agreed, but she'd never say so. It would do nothing to comfort the girl to hear it from her lips.

They sat for a long time, the sun setting a bloody red outside the girl's windows. For most of the afternoon, Sansa Stark huddled against her, clutching Lenna to her and trembling. It took hours for her to go still and quiet. At last, as the sun was setting, spilling eerie rays of crimson light through the windows and across the girl's counterpane, lighting her hair to the same fiery hues as Sansa slept.

Sandor had still not returned.

Lenna kept vigil at the window until she had to light a lamp. The sun set, the blue waters of the sea fading into the darkness until all that she could perceive of them was the endless, soft murmur of the waves. It was a moonless night, the starlight barely illuminating the white crests of the waves as they lapped continuously on.

A light rap on the door came nigh midnight. Lenna had no idea what time it was, not even able to use the moon to venture a guess. The hearth had burned low but there was no more fuel, Lenna stoking it through the evening while the child slept. She stole, barefoot, across the floor.

"Who is it?" she asked lowly.

"Me," he replied. She lifted the bar and opened the door.

She remembered too late that she was only wearing Sansa's shift. It revealed as much as it concealed. Without a word, he swung off his cloak and wrapped it around her shoulders. It was filthy, covered in grime and a fair bit of blood. It still smelled like him. "Let's get you back to your own room," he rumbled.

"Is it safe?" she asked, looking anxiously into the hall.

"Aye," he replied. "It's quiet now."

She looked back at the girl on the bed. Sansa had woken, looking at Lenna with bleary eyes. Seized with a wave of affection, Lenna went to her and pressed her lips to Sansa's forehead before following Sandor out the door.

There was no one about in the halls, and the Keep was disturbingly quiet. Lenna noted that he was holding his arm gingerly, beckoning him in to her room when they reached it. For his comfort, she pulled off his cloak and shrugged on her robe.

"You're hurt," she said quietly, taking his arm. Blood stained his armor near the jointing.

"So are you," he replied, swallowing thickly, his eyes hollow as he nodded. She raised her fingers to her face, remembering the cut.

"Sit, Sandor. Let me clean it."

He sat down heavily on the edge of her bed, his eyes on the floor.

She quickly rinsed the cut on her face, wincing when it stung. She located her salve and smeared a dollop over it, the pain easing almost immediately. It probably wouldn't even scar, it wasn't as bad as it had first looked. A scratch really. She went back to him and helped him take off his armor. It was filthy, the grime leaving dark smudges on her fingertips as she laid it on the chest at the foot of her bed.

He rose and turned from her to remove his hauberk and tunic, folding them both neatly and laying them next to his plate. Lenna had to force herself not to look at the breadth of his shoulders, the thicket of dark hair across his scarred chest. Instead, she forced herself to reach for his arm to inspect the wound below his right elbow.

Somehow, a dagger or a sword had made it into the joint and through the chain mail just enough to leave a bloody gouge on his forearm. It had bled badly, and it was deeper than she liked. Lenna cleaned it as best she could, but it was evident to her that it needed more than a bandage. She did not like how ragged it looked, the skin torn. He must have been in a tremendous amount of pain, but all he did was inhale sharply now and again, his gaze never leaving her face.

"You need a maester for this," she said lowly, her face close to his. He flicked his eyes away, but not before she saw the yearning in them. It made her chest contract painfully.

"No maester," he replied, pulling his arm from her grasp. "I'll stitch it myself. Always have."

"You'll do no such thing," she protested. "It's your sword arm, Sandor, and you'll muddle the job if you try with your off-hand." The wound had stopped bleeding, but she knew it had to be closed. He would not have much time to heal, and it made her frightened to think of him going injured into whatever battle with Stannis was yet to come. There was no question that it had to be seen to at once. "I'll do it," she said, startled by her own voice.

She retrieved her embroidery silks with more bravery than she felt, choosing an undyed skein and threading her needle. The light was too low, so she stoked the fire and lit the lamp, carrying it to where he sat awkwardly on the edge of her bed, braced on the heels of his hands, his head drooping to his chest.

He raised his eyes to hers through the fall of his hair, looking so very tired it made her heart rend.

When she was ready, she next to him and brought his arm gently into her lap. She sewed the wound up carefully, pretending it was a sampler and not his flesh she was passing her needle through. She rinsed it again with water from her ewer and dabbed a healthy portion of salve over it.

"Don't want it to scar," she murmured.

"What's one more?" he asked lowly.

She looked up at him from beneath her lashes with distaste and he chuckled. She bandaged it as best she could, ripping an old gown into makeshift bandages. It made her think back to the first day she'd been brought to the nursery to work with Myrcella. He'd busted his hand training, or at least that's what he'd said. She'd eavesdropped on several people saying he'd been the one responsible for Meryn Trant's swollen nose and black eye. She'd bandaged his hand as she did now, dabbing the salve of lavender and honey across his knuckles, wrapping the bandage snugly, amazed by the warmth of his hand in hers, his stillness as she worked on him.

Still just as he was now, only this time he was looking at her openly, something wild and desperate in the way his gaze settled on her face. They were so close it was almost painful. She made herself pull away from him to fetch the basin and ewer.

"What are you doing?" he demanded, rearing back as she guided a moistened cloth toward his face.

"Believe it or not, Sandor Clegane, you are even more fearsome when your face is covered with another man's blood."

He closed his eyes but held still as she sponged the gore from his face, from the crevices of the scar. As she did, she became less able to ignore that he was sitting with her alone in her room, shirtless, the large expanse of his densely hairy, heavily muscled chest bared to her sight. She tingled, the sensation of her numbness fading like a limb that has fallen asleep being painfully wakened. He stirred something in her. The memory of him under her fingers was still fresh, and she could smell him, sweat and soap and strength. Her hands slowed as she struggled to keep her focus on her task.

She didn't miss the way his chest had begun to heave like bellows working torturously, and she knew it was with great effort that he sat through her ministrations. It must have been as unbearable for him as it was for her, because he caught her hand in his and stood, reaching for his hauberk and breastplate. The shortsword still hung on his hip. When he unfolded his tunic to put them on, clearly intent on leaving, something bright fluttered to the floor.

Lenna bent to retrieve it, stunned to be looking at her handkerchief. It was worn, the embroidery a dingy, dishwater gray, but it was evident to her that it had been cleaned faithfully. The aqua dye had faded, leaving the fabric soft against her fingers. Breathing became difficult.

"You carry it?" she asked dumbly. It had never occurred to her that he would carry it beyond the tourney. She wondered if he had taken it with him every day since. Pleasure and pain prickled.

"Always," he replied simply, his lips barely moving.

"Sandor-" she said, but his name came out as something pitiful and weak.

He crossed to her in two careful strides, his hands trembling as he lifted them slowly, as if in supplication. She did not pull away, and he cradled her face, bending his head to hers. It was a chaste kiss, almost devout in its passion. She was overwhelmed with feeling. It was as powerful as the first time he'd kissed her, her gut sizzling, her stomach fluttering. Her heart pounded as she opened her mouth to him.

The force of his response sent her reeling. It was animalistic in its fervor, everything about him hard and tense as he clutched her to him. His lips were merciless, tongue running along hers, teeth nipping at her mouth like he meant to devour her.

She felt alive for the first time since Joffrey had shattered her hopes.

He abruptly pulled away, an expression not unlike his battle-rage making his scarred face look like it was carved from jagged stone.

"Tell me to go," he pleaded harshly. "Tell me to go, Lenna, or I'll-"

"Stay," she whispered.

He needed no further invitation.

Sandor XXXIV

He wasted no further time.

The terror of the day was still wild in his veins. When he had seen her standing there in that sea of carnage, he had felt the most unholy thread of fear strike through him, white-hot and furious. He had barely reached her in time to cut the man running up behind her to the cobblestones, his hand releasing the upraised dagger he held as Sandor's longsword pieced his entrails and sent them flying. His heart had thrummed in brutal victory even as he drew her, bloodspattered and terrified, through the crowd.

She had been wildeyed, frantically searching for the damn Stark girl. He had shoved her roughly toward the Keep, making sure she got to the gate before he went in search of the girl. He'd found her...her didn't want to think about where he'd found her. It was too easy to imagine that it was Lenna they had spread out and held down to the ground. He'd slit every last one of them from cock to throat, the girl a trembling mass of shock and abject horror at his feet before he slung her over his shoulder like a sack of flour.

When he'd taken her to the Keep, depositing Sansa Stark safely in her room, Lenna had been rushing around like a mother hen, fluttering over the girl while she still had blood soaking her dress and coating her face. He wanted nothing more than the grab her and kiss her, not give a shit if the Stark girl saw. He had saved her, he had kept them at bay, and he wanted to assure himself that she was still there, still his to protect. It had taken every ounce of willpower to go back to the fray and not push her up against the doorframe.

When he'd finally come back, she'd been dressed only in that damn shift, her nipples pushing through the thin fabric. There was a long, angry cut on her cheek, and he felt a bolt of savage rage to see it. He'd slung his own cloak around her shoulders to save his own self-control, and he'd found it nearly unbearable to sit next to her as she'd cleaned and stitched him gently. She behaved as if nothing was amiss, that she had to stitch him up regularly. He wondered if she even realized how close she'd come to dying that day, how that man could have pierced her chest with that dagger if Sandor had been a half-second later. Here was was, though, warm and breathing. His blood rose. They were sitting on her bed damnit, and all he wanted to do was press her into the mattress and prove to himself that she was alive.

Her damn favor had doomed him, fluttering lazily to the floor as he tried to dress, too overcome with her nearness to stay any longer lest he do something irrevocable. She'd picked it up, running her fingers over it, surprise on her features.

"You carry it?" she asked, her voice incredulous. It hit him in the chest.

"Always," he growled. Always, every moment of every day. He slept with it under his pillow at night, tucked it against his chest each morning. Relied on it to remind him that he'd been loved once, that he had reason to live even if what he wanted most could never come to pass.

She'd looked at him sharply, and for the first time in months he saw Lenna, her face relaxing, the mask melting away.

"Sandor-"

His name from her mouth was a spell, calling forth his better nature, and he didn't even think before he stepped toward her, his hands gentle, shaking as he cupped her head to hold her still. He kissed her like he'd wanted to kiss her that day of the Hand's Tourney, or beneath the tree in the Westerlands, or on the ship from White Harbor. He kissed her like one of her make-believe knights would, all tenderness and devotion. If it was to be the last, he wanted it to be perfect. He never wanted her to doubt him again, even if they never had the opportunity to speak or touch or kiss in this lifetime.

And then she'd opened her mouth beneath his, and all thoughts of chivalry and knights vanished, replaced only by scalding need. It felt indescribably good to have her pressed against him again, to have her moans in his mouth, her hands in his hair. There was no getting enough of her, and he felt like a sword being reforged, melted down to liquid heat and being wrought anew, enmeshed with her.

"Tell me to go," he whispered savagely. "Tell me to go, Lenna, or I'll-"

"Stay."

He looked at her wild-eyed for a single moment before her hand slid up his chest and he let his restraint go. A seriousness settled upon him, a gravity as he accepted her invitation. He'd longed for this, for her, and he'd been foolish to push it away for so long. He was not a philosophical man, but the terror of seeing her, covered in blood and frozen in fear, had made him reckless.

He put his hand on her waist, thrilled to feel the heat of her skin through the whisper-thin material of the shift. He pushed the heavy robe from her shoulders, his breath catching when she took a step back, a nervous, somber smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. She couldn't possibly have known, but standing in front of the fire in that almost sheer chemise revealed every curve and plane of her body.

His mouth fucking watered at the sight.

After a long moment of staring at her, drinking in the vision that he had so missed, he pulled her to him. His hands were at work again, digging into her hair, mouth on hers as her nimble little fingers went to work on the straps of his armor. He let it fall with a crash, kicking the braces aside. He removed his own hands reluctantly to strip off the cuisses, greaves, and boots, but she continued to kiss him, her hands pulling at his tunic. He paused just long enough to tear it over his head, standing up and pressing her to him. She smiled against his mouth, pushing away with her hands flat against his chest.

At first he was confused, thought she was rejecting him, had changed her mind, but he watched in slow fascination as she reached up to the neck of the chemise and pulled on the ribbon there, understanding dawning as the cinched fabric gave way and it fell down her shoulders, her arms. The gossamer thing pooled on the floor, leaving her standing there in front of him, softly bathed in firelight. The warm light of the flames licked at her skin, turning her skin hues of rose and gold, her nipples, the juncture of her thighs dusky and almost purple in contrast.

Her hands were shaking. She was entirely bare, but all he could see was her face, spread over by the most delicate blush, her eyes hesitant. She reached toward him and pulled on the drawstring of his trousers, her fingers dipping just below the waistband in a way that made his skin convulse and his lungs collapse inward. Then they were on the floor.

He took her chin between his thumb and forefinger, tilting her face to his. Her eyes were wide and a little apprehensive, but she stood before him boldly. She made no attempt to cover herself as she had in the past, though her body hummed with nervousness.

 _She's worried that she doesn't please me_ , he realized, and it made him smile. It was a wicked, fleeting thing, overtaken in the next moment by a wave of want that he didn't bother to subdue, pulling her against him and wrapping her arms around his neck. He groaned at the feeling of her pressed against him, skin to skin. In all their explorations, he had never let her take the damn chemise off. Feeling her against him like that, all softness and warmth, he knew he'd been right to keep that barrier between them. He wouldn't have been able to stop, and he wasn't going to now. He felt his restraint crack and break away for good, crumbling after a decade of discipline.

He mapped Lenna Manderly with lips and tongue, cataloguing each dip and curve from her collar bones to her breasts. He ran his fingers over the insides of her arms, relishing the quickening of her breath as he did so, nipping at the soft skin of her neck with his teeth to win the little gasps that sent bolts of heat and lightning directly to his cock. He knelt before her on the stone floor, pressing his face against her belly, dropping kisses over her hips, his tongue darting into the juncture of her thighs.

She mewled and he stood, gathering her up easily and laying her out on her bed. The sight, the realization of what he was going to do slowed him down. He was going to have her, and by all the gods, he was going to make a good show of it. He'd make her his, make her want to be his. He bent over her, suddenly tender, running his hand over her face, tracing her brows, her cheekbones, the sharp ridge of her jaw, at last his fingers tangling in her hair. It was still thick and lush, the short curls twining around his fingers like they were reaching out for him, just like her arms were. He knelt above her on the bed, then let himself be drawn down to her, pressing against her shoulder to hip. His cock was already straining, hot and stiff. It was almost painful. She arched her hips toward him and he shuddered.

"Not yet," he murmured.

He wanted nothing more than he wanted to sink into her, but he wasn't about to spend himself too soon. For all his earlier fervor, he wanted to draw it out as long as possible. He might never have this chance again. All of his imaginings, years' worth of sweaty, lascivious musings, came rushing at him in an irrepressible onslaught. There was so much he wanted to do with her, for her, and from the almost steely determination in her eyes, she was going to let him.

Lenna had always been eager before, but now there was an uncertainty about her he found irresistible. She was worried, anxious that he was going to be disappointed with her. He wished he had the words to tell her that there was no possibility in all the seven heavens, seven kingdoms or seven hells that he would find her lacking. He didn't deserve a hair on her head, yet here she was, spreading herself out before him like some delectable feast. He was starving.

He propped himself above her, again running his fingers along her jaw. When he kissed her, he kept his eyes open, watching her as she looked back at him. Drawing his fingers down the length of her neck and between her breasts, he was gratified when her eyes closed involuntarily as she gasped beneath his mouth.

He couldn't think, he could only feel, only look. Her skin was so soft, so pale, his own hands rough and brown in startling contrast. He loved the sight of his fingers splayed against her ribs and belly, smooth and plush and white. He still couldn't believe she let him touch her, wanted him to touch her, but it was evident that she did in the way that her thighs had instinctively opened to him, baring her to his view. His shaft jerked to see her gleaming.

She was watching his hands on her, her own palms running along the breadth of his shoulders. He knew she liked his shoulders, he noticed how she'd dig her fingers into them, try to span them with her arms. One hand laced through the hair at the base of his neck, the other traced through the hair on his chest, snaking across his abdomen. His muscles were taut, quivering under her touch, and he caught her hand before it reached his target. If he let her start stroking him there, he'd be spent before he had a chance to begin. Instead, he seized both of her wrists and pinned them to the bed with one hand, eyes raking hungrily over her. She was spread out for him, her skin glowing pale as snowfall, her eyes lustrous and dark, her mouth parted.

It wasn't the first time Sandor felt knocked back on his haunches by that look on her face. It was the same expression he had suppressed for years, yearning and devotion and want. He'd struggled with it long, at last recognizing that he didn't want Helenna Manderly, he needed her. It was unbearable to him to think that he might be separated from her, that she would be lost to him. He'd felt it that afternoon in a much more visceral way than he had even when the threat of his brother arose. That was in the future, it could be staved off, and Sandor knew that under no circumstances would Lenna Manderly go to Gregor Clegane. He'd steal her first. But that afternoon, he very well could have lost her.

What was more unbelievable was that she seemed to need him, too. It surprised him each time she smiled at him, touched him, spoke his name. He never particularly cared for his name, had no feelings about it one way or another, but on her tongue it was a benediction. The first time she'd spoken it, quietly, shyly, he'd thought he'd go to his knees. She'd sought him out, and he'd been torn between anger and a feeling much more powerful, one that made him want to plunge his hands into her hair. He'd never really kissed women before her. There had been a tavern wench or two, but they were the exception. He couldn't even recall what they looked like. And kissing wasn't something you did with whores. But he'd wrestled against kissing her that day when she'd said his name, wanting to very much to run his fingers across her cheeks, her jaw, the graceful curve of her neck. He'd wanted to see if she was as soft as he imagined her to be, as smooth, and he had held himself back.

 _So much fucking waste_ , he thought, looking down at her and allowing himself to see and acknowledge that she wanted him. She didn't tolerate him, she didn't pity him, she wanted him. No one in this world knew him better, knew what he was capable of, and still she wanted him. Stretched out beside her, skin to skin, he was filled with the regret of pushing what she continuously offered him away with two hands, refusing to believe she could feel anything for him, for closing himself off. He would have saved them so much pain.

"Sandor?" she asked, her brow furrowing. What little caution he had left vanished, and he brought his mouth to hers again, teasing her as he kept her hands above her head. He dragged the rasp of his chest across her breasts, feeling her nipples pebbling against him, his free hand cupping and squeezing, plucking. She whimpered into his mouth, pressing herself against him with arching back. He did not refrain from crushing himself against her, her eyes flying open at the feeling of him hot and rigid on the soft round of her belly.

She pulled against him, trying to free her hands, and he grinned wickedly. He released her but he became the bear again, kneeling before her on the bed, hands digging into her rear as he pulled her closer, making her writhe simply by breathing hotly against her. He drew his tongue along her, garnering him a shuddering sigh, the hands he'd just freed twisting in her sheets as she threw her head back. Her neck arched, and he groaned at the way her body tensed, straining toward him. He lowered his head and lapped at her eagerly, watching her even from his position, enjoying the tug and pull of her hands as they groped for his head as his maiden fair squealed and convulsed against him, her mouth open in wordless pleasure.

He'd forgotten how impatient she was. She tugged forcefully enough for him to know that she wanted him beside her, so he slid up the length of her, replacing his tongue with his hand, his fingers dipping into her wetness, causing her hips to buck against him, her body twisting so that she could touch him. She ran a hand purposefully over his chest and abdomen, eagerly heading for his cock again. This time he didn't draw away, wanting to feel her so badly. He was like iron and felt prone to bursting when she drew one finger tantalizingly up his length from base to tip, the barest hint of sensation. She kept teasing him until he growled, then she wrapped her hand around him tightly, tearing a curse from his throat.

Her eyes were nearly black and they never left his, even as she pressed herself into the bedclothes, arching her back. Her free hand ran a thrilling path from her shoulders and down her torso to meet his between her thighs, her fingers lightly tracing her own curves in a way that made him savage. She touched herself even as one hand continued to stroke him, his own fingers stretching and filling her. It made him whimper with need. He watched her, mesmerized, and he didn't think he'd ever see anything as beautiful.

She must not have realized what she was doing, because she blushed when she saw where he was looking, pulling her hand away and turning her face from him. He caught her wrist and guided her back to herself. She looked up at him from beneath her lashes, her cheeks scarlet.

"Don't stop," he pleaded, continuing to drive his fingers into her, curling them forward in the way he knew made her quake. He memorized every movement, every detail, knowing he'd probably lay in his bunk and dream of this sight for the rest of his life. If by some awful chance they were interrupted at that moment, the way they were entwined, her breathy cries in his ears as he devoured the vision of her in such fulsome pleasure, that alone would be ample fodder for the remainder of his days.

She was beginning to crest, and he encouraged her, murmuring wicked words, telling her exactly what seeing her that way did to him, how beautiful it was, what it made him want to do. A few more moments and she came apart beneath him, breathy sighs and variations of his name from her throat. He could feel her tightening then go languid in the long tremors, her keening absorbed by his shoulder as he slowed his movements to draw it out, whispering encouragement to her, words and phrases he'd never say except to her. Her eyes were shining, and if it wasn't for her uneven hair, he'd have thought they'd gone back to the time before Joffrey had become king.

As she looked up at him, her smile went wicked and his stomach flipped. She raised herself over him, sliding down the length of him until he could feel her breath against his cock, hot and damp. His hands dug into her bedclothes when she traced the tip of her tongue up his length and then circled him, a strangled groan escaping from his throat. He threw his head back when her mouth closed over him, her little hand twisting around his base. For a few long moments he let her continue thus, his hands ghosting over her head, the curls twining around his fingers, gods knew what spilling from his mouth. Words were spilling like a half-formed torrent, and he wasn't at all aware of what it was he was saying. He gritted his teeth at the sudden, white-hot threat of release and pushed her away.

She looked up at him in confusion, but he couldn't speak. He didn't know how to ask her, so he hauled himself up until he was half-sitting against her headboard. He took her hand and pulled her toward him solemnly, eyes holding hers and willing her to understand what he wanted. He swallowed heavily as she drew nearer, clumsily settling over him with a knee on either side of his hips. He didn't know what to make of the mixture of excitement and determination in her eyes, but it made his mouth go dry.

Her cheeks and chest were still flushed from her earlier release, her mouth a ripe, currant red, lips still parted, that wicked little pink tongue darting out to wet them. She practically glowed, her skin pale as milk in contrast with her brows, the blowsy curls that fluttered about her face. The long, graceful column of her neck was exposed without the fall of her hair, curving as she cocked her head and looked back at him. He wanted to nip at it, to find the spot that made her gasp again.

He felt the surge of arousal and fear in his belly as he reached out to her side, fingers following the curve of her ribcage, urging her closer. He could feel her ribs beneath her skin, detect their subtle expansion as she breathed, then he traced the dip of her waist and over her hips, drawing her closer to him by sinking his fingers into the ample softness of her hips. Shifting forward, she grazed along his length. He groaned to feel her heat against him. The smug little smirk on her face was quickly changed to startled lust when he pressed himself upward, pushing against the place his fingers had just been, her mouth open and panting.

"Please," she said. "Show me."

His heart stammered in his chest as he reached down between them to guide himself into her, resisting the urge to thrust into her, to take her like he wanted to. It was going to hurt her, he knew that, but he wanted her to remember this with pleasure, not with pain. He would not forgive himself if she regretted this. He thought that he might die if she regretted it.

He stopped her mouth with his to distract her, groaning as she lowered herself slowly on top of him. It was agonizing trying to hold still. All he wanted was the press up into her. Her breath hitched and he felt her wince, and he was struck with how unfair it was that he should be flooded with so much pleasure and she should not. He'd make it up to her.

She settled around him, clinging to his shoulders as her body yielded to him. Gods, but she was so hot and snug around him, he couldn't breathe. She felt so fucking _good_ he was surprised he didn't spend himself immediately. She was still, her own breathing labored and her eyes closed. When she opened them, he didn't see pain, he saw fire. His cock twitched in her and they both shuddered.

"What do I do?" she asked, her expression serious. He dug his fingers into fleshy hips, guiding her against him, showing her how to roll her hips, to raise and lower herself. He thought he would die of bliss when she started to move of her own accord, her breathing becoming shallower, bracing one of her hands on the wall behind his head. He lifted his chin to kiss her, her mouth gasping above his as he grasped her hip in one hand and stroked her breasts with the other, rolling and twisting her nipple, enjoying the way she ground against him and cried out sharply when he did.

He touched her the way he'd long learned she liked, and it wasn't long before the pain abated, if the way she was undulating her hips was any indication. He went between biting his lip and gritting his teeth to maintain his control, letting her set the pace, the depth, everything, and knowing he must look vicious from the strain in his neck and arms. It was worth it when she went wanton, much to his fierce delight, coming apart around him with her head thrown back and her breasts thrust forward. He buried his face in them as she crested. He didn't bother trying to subdue his curses and groans, words again pouring out in a deluge he couldn't control. He wasn't much longer, her body still convulsing around him, squeezing and gripping, speeding him toward his own release. He spilled into her hotly, muffling the loud groan he couldn't subdue into the crook of her neck.

She slumped against him, boneless and pliable, resting against his chest with unexpected stillness. Once he got his breathing under control, he leaned back to look at her. Her face was still flushed, but her eyes were full of some emotion he could not identify.

"What's wrong?" he asked, suddenly afraid. She looked grave, her cheeks flushed, and she would not look at him. _She regrets it, oh gods, she regrets it now that it's done._

"Nothing," she replied. "I...you..."

To his horror, her eyes welled up with tears.

"What?" he barked in terror, hoping against hope.

"You've never said it to me before," she murmured. "You've never said the words."

 _Oh gods_ , he thought, remembering suddenly that as he'd spent himself he'd groaned three words into her shoulder over and over. Three words he'd never been able to say.

Shy wasn't the right word for what he was feeling. Exposed. Defenseless. Vulnerable. He didn't know why, but he wanted to hide from her, turning his head so she couldn't read his face. Then she'd laid her soft hands on his face and brought him to look at her. Her eyes were shining at him like they contained their own candles.

"It's true," he whispered. "What I said...it's true."

"I know," she replied, "and I feel the same."

She smiled and kissed him, laughing lightly into his mouth. He'd learned that she did so when she was especially happy, it being a second to tears. He hadn't seen her happy in months, if not a year. He honestly never thought he'd see her happy again.

He felt like he was simultaneously collapsing and exploding, joy and doubt running through him in equal measure. He let his hands wander, lightly stroking her sides, running over her soft stomach, letting himself go lax as she rested against him like a languorous cat. He had no words for her after that, the evening had taken more than what he thought he could even give.

He slept. He shouldn't have, but he did, falling asleep for an hour or two with her warm and soft against him. She burrowed into his shoulder, her fingers twined into the hair on his chest, and when he awoke it was still dark night outside her windows. The lamp on the bedside table had gone out, the fire had burned down to embers. When she lifted her face to him, it was a white moon in the darkness, her eyes glittering. If he wasn't mistaken, there was a flash of mischief in them.

"Can we do that again?"

He wasn't feeling particularly playful, but he'd give her what she wanted. Instead of answering, he rolled her in his arms and covered her mouth and her body with his, cradling her against him. He was slow, he took his time, and he stored away every flush and trembling, each gasp and cry, praying to whatever gods were listening that it wasn't the last time they'd be together thus. She was always a quick study, and he felt like he was melting into her when her legs wrapped around his waist as he buried himself in her again and again, clutching her tight to his chest, their foreheads pressed together. When they'd exhausted themselves, he wrapped himself around her, an enormous hand splayed across her belly, and let her sleep. Despite being deliciously drained, he was wakeful and watched for dawn, not wanting to leave but knowing he could not risk falling asleep there beside her again. That was a luxury that wasn't for them.

When the first tendrils of light made their way through the window, he rose and strapped on his armor as best he could, kissing her tenderly, her eyes dreamily watching as he snuck from her chamber and back into the uneasy silence of the Keep.

A/N: Finally.


	35. Chapter 35

Lenna XXXV

When she awoke the next morning, she was confused about why she wasn't wearing her chemise. Sitting up blearily, she spotted it laying on the floor by the hearth and the events of the night before rose up and overtook her. The sheets and blankets on the other side of the bed were rumpled, the pillow still bearing the impression of his head where he'd rested. She sank back into them, luxuriating like a cat, and turned her nose in them to see if she could catch his scent.

She could, and with it came the intense remembrance of what they had done the night before. When he'd kissed her it had felt like stepping into the illustrations from her red book. He'd cradled her so gently, as if afraid she would break, afraid she wasn't real. His violent reaction to the manner in which she returned his kiss startled her as much as it inflamed her, his hands demanding and grasping. She felt like he was trying to climb into her, to mesh with her, and it excited her beyond telling.

Asking him to stay, that hungry glint in his eyes and the desperation vibrating in his fingertips, had been the bravest thing she'd ever done. She knew that as soon as that door closed, they would walk off a cliff's edge together. It would be done, the years of yearning sealed into something much more immutable.

She burrowed deeper into her bed at the memory of him all around her, inside her. She wasn't so innocent that she didn't know it would hurt, and it certainly had. At first. He'd held himself so still, the effort making the veins and sinews in his neck strain as he gritted his teeth, letting her sink slowly onto him inch by inch. She had felt like she was splitting, but she didn't break, her body conforming to his as if she were a glove being stretched and moulded. His arms had held her tight, his eyes never leaving hers. It was in his eyes that she saw fever, and something else.

And then they were moving, her hips seeming to know what to do as soon as he got them started, undulating against him as he stroked parts of her she previously didn't know existed. Sensation threatened to overwhelm her as she braced her hand on the wall behind his head, their faces so close he could dart up to catch her mouth with his, her short curls brushing his cheeks, catching in his beard.

He looked at her all the while, that same look of devotion, only now it was fierce.

It had never been intense before, the waves and eddies of release. Even when he'd used his hands, she'd never felt like that, surrounded on all sides, her body embracing him so fully. He'd kept moving, his expression almost imploring as he convulsed, those three words pouring from his throat with the same fervor as a supplication, a plea, like he was willing her to believe him.

 _I love you_.

He'd never said it. She'd given them to him in the aftermath of the Hand's Tourney, whispered them fiercely in the Sept and watched as his face went wild with joy and fear. It had tongue-tied him, hearing those words from her, and he'd tried to say them back. He'd failed. She only cared that he'd tried.

She looked down on him in stunned silence, her own thoughts feeling dim and small in her own head, still overcome with the aftershocks of their pleasure. She collapsed against him, her head tucked into the crook of his neck, her entire body rising and falling in rhythm with his massive chest as his breathing slowed to normal. She bit down on her thumb, her brow furrowing. Her reaction to hearing him say it wasn't what she would have expected. She wasn't happy like she'd have thought, she felt solemn instead. It was a tremendous thing, bearing the weight love from a man like him.

"What's wrong?" he'd asked, and she heard fear in his voice.

"Nothing," she replied, sitting up and looking at him. _Nothing is wrong, everything is right, only it's just more than it was before._ He was looking at her with a film of terror in his eyes, and it pained her. "I...you…"

"What?" he gasped, and it was like the strike of a bell.

"You've never said it before," she murmured, feeling her entire body flush. It was the strangest thing, she felt like every vein was filling with light, some strange power. "You've never said the words."

Realization stole over his face like a thief, the terror replaced by something else entirely. She didn't know how to describe it, it was like he drew a curtain across his eyes, turning his head and letting his hair fall over his eyes. He took a deep breath and she felt him twitch inside her. The feeling took her aback, the fact that they were still joined together not making her current state any less potent, but quite the opposite.

She hoped she was interpreting his silence correctly. She knew that Sandor had always struggled with his feelings. For so long, his feelings of unworthiness, of self-doubt and hatred had overshadowed anything else he might carry. They had made him push her away, time and time again, always convinced that the only person he was hurting was himself. She saw that as the root to most of the times he'd withdrawn himself, cut himself off from her. It had caused him tremendous pain, he was a man of sorrow, and she thought that he more than likely believed he'd be the only one who suffered long-lasting effects from his decisions.

It had made her so angry, and often. Refusing to meet her gaze in the early days, her transgressions still only known to him, then walking away from her after their return from White Harbor. He'd seemed to understand after the business with Ned Stark, when she had kept herself from him, but even then, he didn't quite grasp how painful it had been for her, too. He could conceive of deserving pain, he didn't think himself of enough value to inflict it.

She wasn't about to let him do it again, throw up those walls and push her away. Not after he'd done what he'd just done. What they'd just done. Lenna was more than pleased to take credit for her part in it, the darkest parts of her still thrumming and exulting in the feeling of him there beneath her.

Her palms on his cheeks, she turned him to face her. The gray eyes were open, and they latched onto hers with an expression not unlike a mendicant begging for scraps. It made her shudder in pleasure and in pain.

"It's true," he said, the words thorny and ripped. "What I said...it's true."

She would have liked him to say them again, but she knew better than to expect him capable of it in such a vulnerable state. His hands were resting on her hips, and she leaned forward, feeling him slip from her.

"I know," she whispered, laying her forehead against his, "and I feel the same."

Light broke in his eyes like a dawn, and she smiled. It felt good to feel her cheeks lift, her lips curl. It had been weeks since she'd properly smiled, and she felt unburdened by it. His face had relaxed, those light-filled eyes gleaming back at her, his mouth slightly parted. She hoped she looked at him the same way, hoped he saw that kind of awe and reverence reflected back at him from her own face.

She laughed when she kissed him, chortling into his mouth. It was better than tears, and he swallowed it greedily, drawing her down beside him against the pillows, wrapping her against him. The lamp was still burning, but she didn't bother to dim it, overcome with sleepy satiety.

She woke once in the night, reveling to stir in his arms, prevailing on him to repeat their earlier activities one more time before dawn broke. He'd not relit the lamp, simply rolled her in his arms so she was beneath him. She didn't know it was possible to feel to entangled, surrounded by another person. Every inch of her was pressed against some part of his flesh, warm and firm and intoxicating. His forehead pressed against hers, his hands cradling her shoulders, her head, eyes glinting silver in the dark. She'd wrapped her legs around his waist as if she'd always known that was what she was supposed to do, and he'd pushed into her again and again, those words on his lips again, breathed against her throat in the darkness.

The door of her room opened with a thud, and Shae bustled in with a basket of laundry.

"My lady," she said in surprise. "I thought you'd already be up."

"I slept in," Lenna said, hastily rising and covering herself with the topsheet, crossing to pick up her chemise where it had landed on the stone floor. Shae's expression remained passive, but one dark brow shot up in inquiry.

Lenna felt her cheeks heat as the other woman's cunning eyes took in the scene. Something about the bed startled her, though, and her face knit with determination and concern.

Shae swiftly stripped the sheets off the bed, and as she did so, Lenna saw what had made her react so. There was a dark smear of blood blooming on the bottom sheet. Shae stuffed it all into the fireplace and lit it, kneeling to stoke it to a roaring blaze.

"There," she said as she stood up. She looked levelly at Lenna.

"Thank you," Lenna whispered. "I wouldn't have thought-"

"Just doing as instructed," Shae said, turning back to the laundry.

"How do you mean?" Lenna asked, shrugging on a fresh chemise and tying it quickly. Shae's brow twitched again, accompanied by a wicked smirk, but she didn't reply. "Will you tell Lord Tyrion?"

"Of course, my lady," Shae responded. Lenna looked away in shame. "My lady," Shae said, a smile in her voice, "you have done nothing wrong."

The other woman- Lenna refused to call her a maid- reached out and laid her hand on Lenna's arm.

"I'm sorry, Shae, it's just-"

"Do you regret it?" Shae asked. "I don't think that you do."

"No," she said lowly. "Of course I don't."

Shae looked at her foxily again. "Was it enjoyable? First times can be-"

"It was wonderful," she replied without hesitation. "I wish-"

"That you'd done it sooner?"

Lenna nodded shyly. Shae laughed, throwing her head back, dark eyes crinkling at the corners.

"Tyrion does, too," she replied, hanging up one of Lenna's gowns. "He said you've been mooning over each other for years, and he was about to lose his mind. I'd not have thought, though-"

"What?" Ire sparked briefly through her blood at Shae's insinuation that she and Sandor were not a logical pairing. Surely the lover of the Imp should know better than to hold with such thoughts.

Shae pinked across the bridge of her nose. "Love knows no reason."

"No," Lenna replied. "It wants what it wants."

Shae was still laughing when she left a quarter hour later, Lenna dressed and ready for the day. She made her way to Cersei's solar, finding the queen standing at the window with a cup of wine in her hand.

"Good morning, your grace," Lenna said. "Are you quite well?"

Cersei turned, her face troubled.

"I am as well as can expected to be. Lenna," she said her voice suddenly shrill. "You were hurt."

Lenna raised her hand to her cheek. She had quite forgotten the cut. "It is a little thing, your grace. It will heal in no time."

Cersei's brow knitted and she crossed to sit at her desk.

"If the riots weren't bad enough, I have had word from my father. I wrote to him, as did Tyrion, to ask his help in deterring your marriage to Ser Gregor."

 _Did this have to happen today?_ she thought. It would have been better to have had a whole day to remember the night before with untainted pleasure. Instead, she folded her hands and waited for the worst.

"What did he say?"

"He agrees with us, he does not want 'to see a lady of such quality come to such an end,' but he fears that an attack from Stannis Baratheon is imminent and begs us hold off on any action we might take."

"I see," Lenna replied. It wasn't a pardon, but she would take a stay of execution.

At that moment, the door to the study opened and Tyrion appeared. Shae had already got to him if his taunting grin was any indication. Lenna averted her eyes from in an effort not to go scarlet with embarrassment.

"Morning all," he said, striding in. He was carrying a roll of parchment in his hand, and he set it on the desk.

"Morning," Lenna replied, begging him with her eyes not to tease her in front of his queenly sister. She knew she'd have it coming later.

"I was just telling Lenna that father has tabled discussion of her marriage."

"Ah yes, in the face of impending battle, there are other considerations to be had. Indeed." He poured himself a glass of wine. Lenna still didn't know how they were all able to start drinking before noon. "I had hoped to find you here, Lenna. Your maid said you would be."

 _He wants you to know that he knows_ , she thought irritably. "Here I am, my lord."

"I would you both look at this, then."

He drank the contents of his glass and, with a great sniff, unrolled the parchment over Cersei's desk. The queen went to it first, staring down at it in lack of understanding.

"I don't know what I'm looking at," she said. "The boundaries look familiar. What is it?"

"Lenna?"

She peered down at it and recognized it at once. She'd seen it's like in the records of Aerys Targaryen's Grand Maester. It made her blood run cold.

"It is King's Landing," she said matter-of-factly. "See, here is the Mud Gate, and here the Old Gate. This is the Keep." She traced her finger over the pathways that had been inked on the parchment.

"Nonsense," the queen replied. "These are not the streets."

"No," Lenna replied. "It is the underground." The queen looked at her in surprise, begging explanation. "I have read of it. A network of passageways that runs throughout the capital."

"And these marks," Tyrion said, pointing to a small mark near the Keep. It was shaped a bit like a teardrop. "What are these? Springs? It looks like water."

"No," Lenna answered. "It is a spark. That is the sign of the Alchemist's Guild."

"This map-"

"My guess is that is the work of Wisdom Rossart," Lenna replied.

"So the sparks," Tyrion said. "Those are caches of wildfire."

Lenna took a deep breath. "Perhaps. I do not know."

"Wildfire," said the queen suddenly. "Is it still there?"

"I do not know," Lenna replied. "Besides, wildfire is...tempermental. It hasn't been made effectively since the reign of the Mad King, and even then-"

"I have never seen it," Tyrion said quickly. "Supposed to melt anything: wood, metal, flesh. I just ask what stops it."

"Nothing, my lord," Lenna replied. "It is impervious to water. It burns out when there is no fuel left. It is what makes it so dangerous. It cannot be stopped once it is aflame."

"But Aerys harnessed it."

"No, your grace," Lenna answered. "His pyromancer claimed to do so, but we do not have any evidence of it. This map, I wager, was Aerys' last attempt to keep the capital out of King Robert's hands. But it was never unleashed."

"So it is still there."

"Who's to say?" Lenna felt sick to the pit of her stomach. "Forgive me, your grace. I would take some air."

"I'll join you," Tyrion said brightly. "I wish to stretch my legs as well."

"Of course," Cersei said distractedly, her attention again seized by the map. Lenna watched uneasily as she traced one finely manicured finger over the passageways, lingering on the sparks.

Lenna gulped in the air and soaked in the sunshine. She felt like she was suffocating as she stood in the study talking of wildfire. There were few things that set her on edge in the history books, but both the Reynes and wildfire made her feel low. The Reynes for obvious reasons rooted in her own past, but wildfire because it was so unknowable. From what she had read, no one in recent memory had actually managed to produce the stuff, the Alchemists themselves nearly vanishing since the deposition of the Mad King, but if possible, the substance was more destructive and deadly than any other force save dragon fire itself. Wasn't it wildfire that Aerion drank in an effort to become a dragon? Then there were the stories of how easily it caught fire, how difficult it was to harness. Something as innocuous as the sunshine that currently splashed across her cheeks could cause it to catch, and then incinerate everything it encountered.

"Dark thoughts, dear Lenna," Tyrion said quietly. "I'm surprised, on a day like today."

Lenna looked down at him, displeased with the smirk that was twisting his odd face.

"I was not the one who brought up talk of wildfire, my lord," she said tersely. "You are foolish if you think to use it in the battle against Stannis."

That sobered him immediately, his eyes darkening. "We need a plan of action, Lenna. Would you see the capital fall?"

"Of course not," she replied quickly, her breath catching. "But wildfire, Tyrion? It cannot be controlled, not truly. So many lives will be lost."

"Let me worry about it," he said, reaching for her hand. "I didn't mean to trouble you. I was going to ask you...no. I see now that it would be took difficult for you."

"My lord?"

"I have been reading. Histories, you see. Looking at past sieges."

Lenna gulped. "I see."

"I was hoping you'd have some insight."

She smiled wanly. "Military stratagem was never my forte. Diplomacy, sure. Not siege tactics."

"Of course," he replied. "Foolish of me. I shouldn't have even thought it."

She made herself take a deep breath, looking out at the sea. They'd wandered to the terraces by the water, the same place where Tyrion had made his futile proposal the month before. It wasn't foolish of him to come to her about sieges. She'd read all of the histories, understood them as well as she reckoned they could be understood, but so had Tyrion. She had no new visions for defense, at least not conscionable ones, and she blessed him for recognizing that she could not plot something like she felt he was planning.

"How long?" she asked at last, the question having been pressing for weeks. Everyone wanted to know how long they had. What would they do with such knowledge? What would it change?

"A matter of days. Perhaps a week."

Her throat closed and she squinted against the sun. _So little time_.

"That long," she said lamely.

"You will be safe in the Keep with my sister, only Lenna," he squeezed her hand, "if the battle comes to a close and we seem to have lost, do something for me."

"Yes, my lord?" she replied absently, her thoughts with someone else.

"Go to your room and bar the door. Do not stay with my sister."

"My lord?" Alarm spread through her at such a request. Her place would be by the queen's side from the moment she was called until the battle was resolved. The women and children would be pulled deep into the Holdfast, where they could not be harmed. She could not fathom why Tyrion would tell her to leave the safety of the queen's protection in such an event. She had not fear of Stannis, but she did not know why he would send her unguarded into an occupied Keep.

"Just...just do it. Please." The note of polite pleading in his voice made her look at him hard. His eyes were dolorous, and she felt the sick stirrings of dread in her belly Lenna narrowed her eyes at him, but she nodded. Tyrion raked a hand through his hair and tried to smirk at her, squeezing her hand again before releasing it.

The smile did not reach his eyes, vanishing as quickly as it appeared, leaving them both long-faced as they gazed at the harbor, improbably beautiful in the bright sunlight, the Blackwater sparkling like a field of gems.

Sandor XXXV

He lived in anticipation of glimpsing her. The riots had been put down, and it had been two days since he'd left her in her chambers. If he had been an expressive man, he might have smiled whenever he thought of it. He didn't, but it did make his heart do a queer little flip in his chest each time he remembered her as he'd last seen her, snuggled into her bedding, hair in disarray across her pillow, milky shoulders bare, the subtle rise and fall of her ribs beneath the skin of her chest as she breathed. She'd been peace personified when he took his leave, dawn spilling in waves of peach and pink, tinting that impossibly pale skin, making the rose of her mouth deepen, purpling the shadows of her lashes against her cheeks.

She looked innocent and good as she slept, a hand resting by her cheek. He'd stayed at her side as long as he could, her head resting on his arm instead of a pillow. It had put his shoulder to sleep, put an uncomfortable crick into his bones, but he'd ignored it. What was a little discomfort to the pleasure of watching her sleep next to him.

In a bed, no less. His chest expanded grandly and then collapsed. In another man, it would have been a sigh. It had been one thing to hold her against him on the window ledge in the library, but another thing entirely to have been in her bed. It made his breath short just to think of it.

Of course, memories of it had consumed his thoughts to the point that even he thought he was mooning. He was lucky mooning looked like scowling on him, and the other guards had given him a wider berth in the wake of the riots.

Except for Tyrion Lannister's runty cunt.

"Lord Tyrion calls for you."

Sandor grunted, turning to find the sellsword leaning against the wall with careful casualness picking his nails.

"I don't care what your little lord wants," he replied tersely. He was just off duty, and he thought he might catch her in the Sept if he went quickly.

"'Bout your woman," the sellsword said. That got Sandor's attention, his scowl deepening. Without a further glance at him, Sandor turned his feet toward the Tower of the Hand.

Tyrion Lannister was pacing up and down his study. He halted when Sandor entered, placing his hands behind his back and looking him up and down appraisingly.

The Imp cocked his eyebrow, and Sandor saw red.

"Don't you fucking dare-"

"I wouldn't dream of it," Tyrion said, putting both his hands up in front of him in surrender. "Only I do hope, Clegane, that you have taken the necessary precautions." Sandor paled, feeling like a rutting boy called to his father's carpet. "I'm sure you don't want a pack of whelps running around just yet."

Whelps. Pups. Children. He hadn't thought about it, not once. _Gods_.

"Judging from your face, I gather that you didn't. That could complicate things."

"That why you called me here?" he growled.

"In part," Tyrion said. "And to update you, of course. We heard back from my father. He is tabling discussion of Lenna's marriage."

Sandor's hackles rose again. "Why?"

"We are awaiting imminent battle," Tyrion said flatly. "All resources, physical and mental, must be put to the defense of King's Landing."

"What of her defense?" he demanded. "He wants her married off as part of the victory celebrations."

"Indeed, but wouldn't it look like a fine trade to paw her off on the hero the day?"

"What are you getting at?"

"A command. I'm giving you one. Let it be considered a tactical move."

Twin flashes of pride and anger flashed through him. A command was a compliment, a display of confidence. He had not compunction about taking one. He had some pretty fair ideas about how he'd defend the city. He'd been thinking on it. It confused him, though, that it was Tyrion who was talking to him about it. "Why is the king not informing me?"

"The king is a boy, and he is not in charge of our defenses," Tyrion replied testily. "I am. And I am choosing you to lead a contingent of men to stave off any attack via the Mud Gate."

"Mounted or on foot?" he demanded, his brain automatically running scenarios. The Mud Gate opened onto the wharves, but Stannis was likely to land his men on the beaches as well. The Gate itself was a position to fall back to, any sortie would venture far out of its protection. That meant sand, and he didn't like sand.

"On foot, naturally," Tyrion replied. Sandor suppressed a grunt of annoyance. He spoke it like a man who had not seen his share of fighting.

"It isn't natural, my lord," Sandor said tersely. "Sand is unstable, especially to men in plate. Horses fare better in sand that boots do. Four legs and hooves distribute their weight, where men slip and lose their footing."

Tyrion looked at him and cocked his head. "That is a valid point."

"I know." He couldn't resist the note of challenge in his voice. Of course he fucking knew, he didn't need the little lord to tell him so. He'd done it, for more years now than he'd been alive when he'd started fighting for the fucking Lannisters.

"You'll have your pick of the city guard," Tyrion said. Sandor humphed. The gold cloaks were not exactly an elite fighting force. The Imp looked at him peevishly from under the mop of his hair. "Poor leavings as they are, they are what we've got."

"As you command, my lord," he replied woodenly.

"One other thing," Tyrion said, suddenly serious. "Should this battle go to Stannis Baratheon, I have instructed Lenna to leave my sister and return to her own rooms."

"Why? She'd be safest with the queen." Sandor was now quite sure that Tyrion knew exactly what had happened, and, what was more, that the sellsword did, too.

Tyrion looked back at Sandor mysteriously. "The further she is from my sister in that event, the better. They will only have Ser Ilyn to look after them."

He felt like ice was trickling down his back, making him shudder. It had never occurred to him that Cersei would preemptively take her own life, deprive Stannis Baratheon of the pleasure of taking her hostage. Of course she was too proud to suffer such humiliation. He shuddered.

"Stannis will not harm her," Tyrion said, taking in his reaction. "Or Lady Sansa. Their fathers and brothers have not declared for him, but they very well may. He will not jeopardize them or let any harm come to them."

"Noble thoughts, my lord," Sandor said lowly. Stannis might, but it wouldn't be Stannis that got to them first. If he was the victor, Sandor would be unable to protect them himself.

"I just wanted you to know," Tyrion replied flatly. "I have not forgotten her."

"Neither have I," Sandor rasped savagely, feeling the accusation in his words. No, she consumed every breath, that old vow now sitting heavier than ever.

"So I've heard," Tyrion riposted. They were growling at each other like tomcats, Sandor startled to hear the sellsword chuckle. He'd forgotten all about him.

"Make no mistake, Clegane," he said, straightening himself. "We won't lose."

"How do you know?" he demanded. The smug assurance on the man's face annoyed him. He wanted to plant his fist in his face and make that nose even more crooked than it already was.

"Because I have the most important part to play, and I won't fuck it up."

Sandor growled.

"It is rather ingenious," Tyrion said. "Found it in a book, of course. Stringing a chain across the harbor to prevent retreat on the attack has been made. Should Stannis wander in…" Tyrion pulled a face and made a slicing motion across his own neck. "Still, if we don't, know that she'll be safe."

"And if we lose, she'll be just as much in danger as she was before," he rasped. "Sounds to me like she's at risk no matter which way it goes. May I leave now? Have you further use of me?"

"No. Certainly go," Tyrion replied. "Gather your men, have them train as long as you can. On horseback and on foot."

"Aye, my lord," he said, turning to go. To his consternation, Bronn followed. He didn't much feel like company, annoyed that his chance to find her had been taken from him. Not that he knew what he'd say. If he was being honest with himself, the thought of seeing her terrified him. He felt that something had happened, something he couldn't explain. He had few words to begin with, but he certainly didn't have the right ones to talk about what had happened between them. He needed to think, and he wouldn't be able to do that with the sellsword on his heels.

He turned his feet toward Flea Bottom and the ale house he favored, Bronn falling into step beside him.

"Why are you following me?" he growled.

"Fancied a drink," he replied. "Can a man not get a drink when he wants one?"

Sandor scowled, not knowing how to get him to leave him alone. He took a seat opposite as Sandor sat down on the ale house bench. He didn't look at him, keeping his eyes in his ale.

"You're awful long-faced for a man who's just-"

"Shut up," Sandor barked. "I wouldn't talk about it with him, and I sure as fuck won't talk about it with a cunt like you."

"Fair enough," Bronn said, sniffing cheerfully. "So, what are you going to do?"

"What do you mean?"

"You can't honestly tell me you're going to wait around for the fucking Lannisters to step up and do something about your brother, can you?"

"They will keep her safe." _At least they will try_.

"So they say, but what happens if we win this battle and your brother comes in a hero and a victor? What if the king dislikes little Lord Tyrion's suggestion? He hates his uncle, he won't bow to his wishes for just any reason. Even if Lord Tywin backs him, it's still not a sure thing."

"What do you suggest I do, then?" he growled, balling his fist on the table. It was almost as big as the tankard, and the sellsword eyed it with a flash of wariness.

"If it were me, if I had a woman like that sneaking me into her bed, a highborn lady with a face like hers, and a temper so sweet-"

"Get to your point."

"Don't like hearing your lady praised? Should make you proud." He wondered if Bronn was aware of how very close he was to being killed.

"Get. To. Your. Fucking. Point."

"If it were me," Bronn said, hunkering over his ale with sudden seriousness, hands wrapped around the tankard, "I'd steal her."

"Steal her?" Sandor asked incredulously. Did the man think she was an object that could be secreted away?

"Aye," he replied, both brows raised conspiratorially. "I'd throw her over me pommel and light out of them gates like the hounds of the seven hells were on my heels."

"That would make me a traitor." He said flatly. Treason would land his head on a spike and her in just as much danger as before, if not more.

"Since when you care what the fuck anyone thinks about you?" Bronn asked with mocking laugh and a swig of beer. "I don't know you well, but I know you enough to know you don't give two shits what these cunts think about you. Who cares if you're called a traitor."

"They'd send men after us. Lenna is the queen's closest lady."

"Lenna?" Bronn said, raising his eyebrow. "You have gone deep, haven't you?" Sandor glowered at him. "You're right, they probably would, but you'd move fast, take her somewhere safe."

"There is nowhere safe."

"Her brothers are up there with Robb Stark, north of the Oxcross. It's not that far. A week of hard riding, at worst? And if you were to leave, say, dark of night…you'd have a head start."

"Why should I listen to you?"

"I like her," Bronn said. "If I didn't think you'd turn me inside out and wear my skin for a cloak, I'd steal her myself. Seems a very put-upon lady," he said thoughtfully, leaning back. "She's suffered."

"Aye," Sandor replied quietly, watching the bubbles trickle upwards from the bottom of his ale and break like stars on the surface. "She has."

"So have you."

"Same could be said of everyone like us," Sandor replied, acknowledging their similarities glumly. The sellsword smirked.

"Odd, isn't it?" he asked thoughtfully, his gaze going distant. "Men like us, all we ever can do is take life out of this world. We're good at it. We like it. It stirs our blood. How does a woman like yours, all soft and sweet and good, how does she care about one of us? How does that happen? She should have some handsome little lordling with a fine keep and riches to shower on her, but she chose...well, she chose you." Sandor looked at Bronn through his hair. "You might be the biggest, ugliest fucker I've ever seen, but you are one lucky son of a bitch, I'll grant you that," he said drinking deeply, flicking his eyes back to Sandor's. "Luckier than you deserve."

Sandor couldn't disagree. He drained his cup and lifted a finger for another, his mind aswirl with the sellsword's words, the thought of throwing her into his saddle and riding through the wild looking more and more appealing.

A/N: I love how I say I'm going to slow down, and then I don't really. Goodness. I can't let them sit once they're done. I have to get them out there. Granted, this one is much shorter. The next will be a similar length, then I'm toying with ways to break up the next bit. Lenna and Sandor might get entirely separate chapters. I know y'all like getting a double-dip of POV, but I want to avoid a 10,000 word chapter. Ha.

Thank you for your feedback on the last chapter. I was very nervous posting an actual lemon. Eek. They're scary. I'm glad you seemed to like it. Reviews are the best, please leave one. I love seeing all the familiar names, and seeing some new ones, too!


	36. Chapter 36

Lenna XXXVI

She was tired and it was still early when Sansa Stark burst into her rooms without knocking, Shae following in her wake with an expression of rage that would shake the gods. Sansa threw herself on Lenna's bed, her thin shoulders heaving, the sounds of her sobs echoing off the walls.

"What is the matter?" Lenna demanded, rising quickly from her desk. Sleep was a stranger, and she had been awake for the long gray hours before dawn. Her head ached and she massaged her temples with her fingertips, fighting off the pang of annoyance she felt at Sansa's presumptuousness. The girl could have at least knocked. She would have answered the door. She'd only been working through one of Tyrion's long translations, taking comfort in the familiar process, looking forward to speaking with him about it. To her dismay, she realized that she had upended her inkwell on the parchment, ruining several morning's worth of work.

"Your _friend_ ," Shae hissed. Lenna's looked at her with what she hoped was warning. She didn't like that Shae knew what Sandor was to her, didn't like that anyone knew. While she certainly wasn't ashamed, she knew he was right in thinking that being found out would go poorly for both of them. Shae was speaking rashly to even insinuate such a thing in front of Sansa. The girl was too naive to recognize the danger a stray word could pose.

"What are you talking about?" Lenna asked, simultaneously exasperated and fearful. She could feel the heat creep into her cheeks, but Shae was far too preoccupied with Sansa to care. Luckily, Sansa was too busy sobbing into Lenna's pillow to have noticed the look that passed between them or the tone of Shae's voice.

"Why would he tell her?" Sansa shrieked, her voice muffled . "Why would he do it?"

Lenna's patience was hanging by a thread. She had no time for hysterics, and even less time for puzzles. "Will one of your please tell me exactly what happened?" Lenna said, her voice rising in anger. "I cannot do anything until I know what is wrong."

"Lady Sansa has flowered," Shae replied, pursing her lips and cocking her eyebrow. "And your guard dog has run to tell the queen."

 _Was that all?_ Lenna took a deep breath. "Of course he did." She didn't know why Sandor would know, but of course he would tell the queen. He wasn't stupid. The girl's whole future hung in the balance while they waited for her body to catch up with her womanly ways. If she'd flowered, her marriage to Joffrey would be swift to follow. Unhappiness and sympathy rose in Lenna, but while she pitied the girls, she also envied her. How awful that she should wish for Joffrey over her own potential groom.

"I cannot marry him," Sansa said bleakly, finally raising her head and looking at Lenna forlornly. Her face was tear-streaked and blotchy, spots as red as her hair covering her skin unevenly. "I told him that and still he went."

"Sansa," Lenna replied quietly, crossing to her bed and sitting next to the girl. She gingerly placed a hand on the girl's thin back, dismayed that she could count her ribs, feel the knots of her spines. She wasn't eating, and neither was Lenna. "He had to."

"He didn't," Shae bit back, her hands on her hips and her face a fury. "He didn't have to say anything."

"He couldn't lie about a thing like that," Lenna said firmly. Shae was smart, but she still didn't understand the way things were done in the Keep. That much was obvious to her from the little Tyrion had confided in her. Shae continuous flouted the boundaries he put in place, threatening to expose herself. Lenna doubted the other woman knew exactly what that could mean, and she would bet a gold dragon that Shae didn't believe things were as bad as they were. She prayed that the Lorathi wouldn't learn the hard way. "It would be too risky."

"It wouldn't be a lie, it would just be an omission-" Sansa replied, but her strangled voice died away, her eyes drawn to the doorway.

Sandor was standing there looking grim as ever. Sansa's face was tight and she radiated righteous anger. If she was looking for a reaction from him, Lenna knew all too well that she wouldn't get one.

"She said I could trust you," Sansa bit out, spit flying, "but you're just a dog like everyone says."

The insult landed harmlessly, and Sandor smirked. Lenna knew he didn't care what the girl thought of him. Like a hound, he had only one master, the rest of them be damned.

"A dog will die for you, little bird," he said quietly, his voice gentler than Lenna expected. He was exerting an extreme amount of his very limited patience. "but he won't lie to you. Or for you. And he'll look you straight in the face. Hate me all you want. It doesn't change what's done. What had to be done."

"Why? Why did you do it?" Sansa demanded, her face growing redder, the tears pouring down her cheeks. "I can't marry him!" Lenna wrapped the girl into her shoulder, looking at Sandor dispassionately over the girl's head.

"I help you when I can, my lady," he said slowly, his eyes flicking to Lenna's. "But I won't risk my neck for yours."

"But-" Sansa protested. Sandor took another step into the room, ducking his head and addressing Sansa alone. The girl struggled to look back at him.

"You've been in this Keep too long not to understand that everyone here is on their own," he said. "You depend on others to stand up for you far too much. You must stand on your own feet, child," he continued. "Everyone else here does."

"Lenna helps me," she replied defiantly, lifting her chin.

"Aye," he replied, anger pushing him back a step and radiating from him like heat from a fire. He stood at his full height and gestured to Lenna. "And look what it cost her. It could have been her head he made me cut off. Would that have satisfied you, little bird? Lady Helenna's head for your stupidity?"

"Clegane," Lenna interrupted. "That was not the girl's fault."

"It was," he replied, looking at her like she was daft. "If she'd done as she'd been told and gone home to Winterfell like her father wished, none of this would have happened. She'd be safe, and so would you. She's angry with me for running to the queen, when it was her running to the queen that started this mess to begin with."

"I didn't know-" Sansa wailed.

"Now you do," he replied, tone sharp as newly-whetted steel. "See that you remember that everything you do has a price."

"My father would still have marched with Robb Stark," Lenna replied softly. "And besides. What does this bickering do? Nothing. It does nothing, and I'm tired of it."

Sandor shook his head, looking back at Sansa.

"I'm sorry for you, my lady. I'd not wish him on anyone, let alone an innocent child like you, but this is the way of things now." He looked to Lenna, taking in her old blue dressing gown, every inch the Hound again. It astonished her how quickly he could throw that cloak over his face. "The queen asked for you, better make ready quick."

Lenna looked to Shae, only to find that she'd gone to her wardrobe already, pulling out a gown. Sandor nodded and went to stand outside the door.

Sansa still sat on her bed looking miserable, her face tearstained and blotchy. Her eyes would be red-rimmed for hours, and Lenna hoped that Joffrey didn't call for her. He hated to see her crying. It made her less pretty for him.

"I'm sorry, Sansa," she said quietly. "You must continue to bear up."

The girl nodded, reaching out and squeezing Lenna's fingers.

"I'm sorry, too," Sansa replied. "About your hair."

Lenna smiled genuinely. "Never mind my hair, child. It'll grow."

She met Sandor outside her door. She hadn't seen him since the night of the riots. He hadn't returned to her rooms, nor had she expected him to. When he looked at her, there was a fullness and a complexity in his gaze that was new and rather unexpected. He didn't know what to do, what to say, and for once neither did she. She settled for staying in step beside him, her shoulder brushing his, wondering if he was thinking of the same things she was.

Something had changed, something that had been wrought between them years earlier had settled into place. There had always been a whisper of sympathy, even in the beginning, and it had grown stronger and stronger until now Lenna was quite sure she was welded to him in an immutable fashion. From the way he seemed to vibrate, his hand so near hers that she could almost feel him like he was touching her, he felt it too.

 _I am his and he is mine_.

As soon as she thought it, she felt foolish. She was a grown woman, not some simpering girl. Strangely, she couldn't think of a more apt way to describe how she felt, even simply walking next to him. The incongruity of them struck her, not for the first time, the Hound having taken the place of Sandor always when it was not just the two of them. He'd cleaned and polished his plate, and he walked in that adversarial fashion that she'd come to associate with his duty, shoulders forward and head lowered, like a bull thinking to charge. If she ever worried that someone might suspect them, she put the thought aside. No one would think this hulking man capable of acting the lover's part.

That made her smile to herself, secret and warm. She blushed deeply when she glanced up to find him looking at her. He looked anxious, his face not quite blank, a humming nervousness in the set of his shoulders, the lay of his hands. His head was tilted toward her ever so slightly, watching her through the curtain of his hair, eyes searching. His eyes closed in what must have been relief when she slipped her fingers into his and squeezed. She was rewarded by the slight upturn of his lips, the brief pressure of his hand around hers before they each let go.

Cersei was in her study. She was standing by the windows, biting down on the tip of her forefinger as she stared out at the sea. Lenna was surprised to see Tyrion seated at her desk, his fingers steepled across his belly.

"Your grace, Lord Tyrion," Lenna said, curtseying quickly.

"Lenna, come in," Cersei replied, turning to her quickly. She made a brisk movement with her fingers at Sandor to indicate he should go. He nodded deeply, not looking at Lenna as he turned on his heel and left. Lenna hated to watch him go not knowing when they'd have the opportunity to speak. She desperately needed to talk to him.

Cersei took up her spot by the windows, gazing out in the courtyard below. She was dressed in pink, her hair streaming around her shoulders. She hardly looked like a dowager queen, the word conjuring the image of a crone, or at the very least, a portly elder monarch. Cersei was still fair, but now her face was perpetually troubled, the indentation between her brows a permanent feature.

"Lady Sansa is a woman," she said plainly.

"Joyous news, your grace," Lenna replied, endeavoring to pitch her voice with joy. "Now she and Joffrey may be wed, and this whole unpleasantness with the North put to rights."

Cersei began to pace, chewing on her thumb. It always struck Lenna as incongruous to see her that way, nervously biting her nails in thought.

"I begin to think," Cersei said, turning to Lenna, "that it is not perhaps the best option to marry Sansa to my son."

"Your grace," Lenna replied with a dry laugh, "you have insisted on maintaining the betrothal, why change it at this point?"

"Renly Baratheon is dead," Cersei replied. "We received news this morning."

"Gods," Lenna replied. Real grief had squeezed her heart like a fist. _He was beautiful and kind_. She thought of his antler in desk, given to Sandor in a show of humility at the Tourney. "I know that he was thinking to rise against King Joffrey, but the thought of Renly dead-"

"Some foolish story about being killed by a ghost," the queen continued, completely unbothered by the death of her brother-in-law. Lenna's brows show up.

"What?"

"It is claimed that he was killed by a shade, stabbed through the heart by a shadow with his brother's face."

"Quite a tale," Lenna replied. She looked down at her hands, struggled not to gulp in dismay. She'd read accounts of such things, of course, but she'd always taken them with a grain of salt. She struggled to balance her faith in the Seven with tales of witchcraft and sorcery. It seemed to her that there was no magic in the world, not the kind the queen spoke of. No spells or conjurings, just people and their misdeeds.

"Catelyn Stark was there apparently," Cersei continued breezily. Lenna concealed her surprise. _She is nearby, then_. "But it now leaves Margaery Tyrell a royal widow."

"I had heard they wed. I have never met the lady."

"Nor have I," Cersei said, "but the Tyrells-"

"Do not speak to me of the Tyrells, your grace," Lenna replied, a smirk on her lips. "We have never quite forgiven them their betrayal of us. Them or any of the lords of the Reach."

"You are right, Lenna. Your memory is quite long," Cersei laughed. "Nevertheless, Margaery is young, beautiful, and very, very rich. Considering that it looks like our greatest adversary is not Stark, but Baratheon, it would be a much more suitable match for Joffrey to consider Margaery as a bride than Sansa. The widow of his uncle, a unification of both his houses, in a way. In addition to all the wealth and support of the lords of the Reach and Stormlands, of course."

"Would they rally in opposition to Stannis, do you think?"

"The Reach? More than likely. The Stormlands? Remains to be seen. But I am hopeful."

Lenna took a deep breath. "And Lady Sansa? If this is done, what will become of her?"

"I don't really care," Cersei said flatly. "But I suppose accommodation must be made for her."

"In what way?"

"She will, of course, remain here as our guest," the queen replied, her voice lingering unconvincingly on the last word. "Perhaps in time a suitable match may be made for her."

"Perhaps, your grace," Lenna said carefully, "perhaps she could be ransomed. To her mother. Lord Renly's forces are not so far away, and if Lady Catelyn is with them, then Sansa-"

"No," Cersei said shortly. "She is too valuable as our guest here. It is good to remind Robb Stark that we have his sister. And her mother, too. She will stay. We'll find some little lord to marry her off to."

"I wish her more joy than I have had in that regard," Lenna replied, disappointed that her suggestion had been met with such immediate disapproval. Cersei looked at her sharply, but there was guilt in that gaze. "I'm sorry, your grace."

"Don't be," she replied, sipping from her glass. "We are of the same mind. I wish there was more that I could do."

"Will he not be swayed?" Lenna asked, ashamed that she was discussing her own troubles again. _Didn't he tell Sansa to stand up for herself?_

Cersei shook her head resignedly. "I dare not push him more."

"Your grace," Lenna said slowly, "what is it that I have done to offend the king so? I always did my best to treat him kindly. I have no idea what it is I have done, other than be born Northern, to have made him despise me so." It was a question that had rankled Lenna since the king was a boy. He had been so sweet and loving with her when he was young, and Lenna could not put her finger on what had changed, why he had gone from affectionate to disdainful.

Cersei's brow knotted and she looked out the window. "I cannot say for certain, but I think perhaps Joffrey dislikes you because Myrcella loved you. Because I love you. He cannot bear not to be loved."

"Surely he knows that just because others have something it doesn't mean it has been taken from him?"

"I don't know," she said swiftly. "But do know this, Lenna. Whatever I can do for you, I will. I do not want you unhappy. Truly. Granted, content may be the best either of us could ask for."

Lenna found the grace to smile at her. "I know, your grace."

"There may be a way, when all of this is over," Cersei said, waving her hand in vague indication of the battle to come. "But you will not like what I propose."

"Your grace?"

"Ser Gregor is a brute, but he has served this family well. As well as his little brother, and better," Cersei said. "Joffrey will want to reward him, as will my father."

"Harrenhal is not enough, your grace?"

"It would be to you and me," she replied. "And to my father, for that matter. He is most displeased. I do think he still had you in mind for Tyrion. I regret that I stepped in the way of that when it was still possible." Lenna looked at her in confusion. Cersei looked uncomfortable, and it was the first time Lenna had seen that kind of apology written on her face. "Years ago, father had suggested it. Shortly after you met Tyrion. It was plain to everyone with eyes that you had formed some sort of friendship under our noses. What more could my Imp brother ask for than friendship? And an alliance with a Great House would have been beneficial to your families. We could have united the seas with such. But I stood in opposition."

Lenna chose not to speak, not to ask for her reasoning. Cersei's expression showed her expectation that she would do so, and she pressed on anyway, her reply ready.

"I did not want to lose you as Myrcella's tutor," she said quickly. "Her guardian, for you were more than her tutor. That word does not quite express what you were to my girl. I nearly hated you for how she loved you, but how could I hate someone who would love her as you did? I was selfish, and I do regret it very much. You should have been allowed to marry, to have a family of your own, and I kept that from you. If I had, you would not be facing Gregor Clegane."

"Your grace-" Lenna said, shaking her head. While it was true that she would not have been in her current situation if she had married Tyrion early on, it would have cost her Sandor. Foolish as it was, she wouldn't have traded what little time they'd had for it. At least, that's what she told herself.

"No, Lenna," she said. "I don't often apologize, but I will say that I am sorry for it. I regret it. I never imagined that we would find you in such a situation. Rest assured that it is in my thoughts, as well as those of my father and brother. There must be some remedy for this. We will find it when this business with the Baratheons blows by. There is, however, something that may sweeten the medicine, sway the king."

"What is that, your grace?"

"This business with the North will be put down, and soon. Houses will need to be brought back in line. We will unite behind a common enemy."

"Stannis," Lenna answered.

"Yes," she replied. "And we will lose part of our fleet in the battles to come. It is too late for your father to aid us now, of course, nor would he while standing with Robb Stark. Stannis' fleet is a day's voyage from our harbor. But after- you might prevail on him to send reinforcements. In exchange for a shift in prospect."

Lenna gritted her teeth. "Who, your grace?"

"I'm sorry, Lenna, but the only option we've alighted on is Sandor Clegane." Lenna felt as if the floor had opened beneath her, the sensation of falling, no, flying, so strong she nearly spilled out of her chair. Cersei looked at her apprehensively, noting her unsteadiness and moving quickly to extend a hand. "One dog for another, but at least he's not mad. He is not nearly so bad as his brother, Lenna. I had rather thought you were friends of a sort."

"Yes," Lenna replied. "I am not unhappy about such a prospect, your grace."

"You looked faint. It is an insult, I know-"

"No, your grace, I am not faint, or insulted. Relieved. I am relieved." Her voice was a whisper. It wasn't a lie. She was relieved, but relieved did not encompass the queer hope in her breast.

"Your father," Cersei said carefully. "Will he be prevailed upon to approve?"

"I believe so," she whispered. "He liked Clegane. If I am allowed to explain-"

Cersei cocked her eyebrow, pausing for a long moment. "We will do what we may. But you will consent?"

"Aye, your grace. With my whole heart."

Lenna never thought she'd spoken truer to the queen, not at all unaware that the significance of such was lost on Cersei. She did not care. Something bright and white had unfurled itself in her breast, and she would not let it be repressed.

Sandor XXXVI

He could no longer bear it. He tried the Sept, he tried the gardens, he even tried to pace the passageways in hopes of crossing paths with her. She did not appear. The night he went to the queen about Sansa Stark's flowering, knowing that Stannis Baratheon's siege was imminent, possibly the next day, he found himself stealing through the Keep after midnight and stopping in front of her door.

He raised his fist to rap, pressing his tongue against the roof of his mouth and gritting his teeth in determination. He needn't have bothered. The door opened to him before he could knock, and he found himself face to face with her.

He wasn't quite prepared for the wealth of feeling that surged over him to see her as Lenna, not her courtly counterpart. It had been difficult enough walking down the passageway with her that morning, even harder when she slipped her slim fingers into his. He's been anxious, not at all sure what he was supposed to say or do, nervous that she had thought better of what she had allowed him to do. Liberty didn't begin to describe it. He felt like together they'd done something final, immutable, complete. And gods, he didn't want to change it. He didn't want to hear her say that it had been a mistake because it was the only thing he'd ever done that had felt true, even if he'd had no right to do it.

She was in her dressing gown, an old, blue silk thing that was frayed at the bottom, and she was smiling ever so softly at him. Relief rained down on him, just as it had that morning when her hand took his. He felt his entire body go lax, his fist hanging stupidly in the air where he'd been about to knock, frozen mid-action. He dropped it quickly, feeling a fool, and looked at the floor.

"Aren't you coming in?" she asked, stepping aside. He looked briefly past her into the room's warm interior. If he had a conception of the seven heavens, his would look like her chambers, awash in the glow of a stoked fire, her four-poster laden with soft bedding and blankets, and her holding the door open to him.

 _Mine_. He took a breath and crossed the threshold.

She closed and bolted the door behind him, moving quickly to her desk. It was strewn with parchment, and it made him smile to see her fluttering about like a nervous bird. She replaced her quill in it's stand and capped her inkpot, sprinkling her sand over her writing and quickly storing the remnants.

"Sorry," she said with a quirk of her lips, her gaze only briefly meeting his. The bravado of the doorway had vanished in the intimacy of her chamber. He, too, was all to aware that they were alone. "Tyrion set me on a translation and it has kept me up."

"No sorry needed," he replied. "I did not wish to bother you." It sounded formal in his own ears, and he wondered what in the hells a man was supposed to say.

"I was hoping you would," she said, her eyes gleaming. She closed her eyes briefly, and he knew she was gathering courage to say something. She always found the courage to speak. "I have missed you, Sandor."

His breath caught and he groaned internally. She had no idea the effect of his bloody name on her lips. Parts of him that were already on alert now stood at the ready. If he wasn't so far gone he might have been embarrassed.

When she finished tidying up, she came to him slowly. He realized with a bolt that her hesitance was shyness as she quietly laid a hand on his chest. She wasn't looking at him, her lashes fluttering dark like feathers on her cheeks, and he put his own hand over hers. It was soft and small and warm, and he squeezed it, bringing her eyes to his. He knew she could feel his heart in his chest, loud as thunder.

He'd felt nervous in the beginning, just after the tourney when she had first kissed him. He'd been impressed with her boldness then, the way she had risen on her toes and pressed her lips to his. It was unexpected, yearned for, and he couldn't believe it at first. After, he wondered if he had her permission to do the same, to kiss her when he wanted, and he had learned that he did. There was still a twinge of fear when he dipped his head to hers, the painful thought that perhaps he'd lost the privilege. Or never had it to begin with. Surely he had dreamed the last few months, all of their time together just a figment of his own imagination. Even if he did believe it, so much had transpired since the Tourney of the Hand. Now, having had her maidenhead in the bed not two strides away, he wondered if he still had her leave to touch her as he wished.

She peered up at him through her lashes and he ducked his head jerkily, his mouth catching hers. He couldn't resist, didn't want to resist. She readily returned it, and something tightly wound in him went slack with relief.

"You've missed me, too," she said playfully, pulling away from him. His cock was already hard and ready between them, but he had things he needed to say.

"Aye," he replied. "Are you well?" _You're an idiot_.

"I am," she replied. "Sit?"

The only option was to take a position on the edge of her bed, which he did gingerly. He had to keep his head clear, and Lenna with him on a bed in any position would sorely tempt him to lose it. He needed to talk to her, for them to address what had happened. For him to tell her about what he'd been thinking, the idea that Bronn had put into his head.

"Wine?" she asked. He nodded gratefully, taking the glass from her and almost smiling to taste Dornish sour. "I know it's your favorite."

He nodded, watching her as she uncertainly sipped her own. She was less than a foot away from him, and he could feel her heat through the dressing gown, through his tunic, almost like they were skin to skin. _Fucking hells, think about something, anything, else._

"I needed to see you," he said at last. "We need to talk."

"Aye," she agreed, and before he could speak again, she did. "I saw the queen today."

"And?"

"There is to be no decision made regarding a betrothal until after the battle to come."

"That's what Tyrion said."

"You've spoken with him?"

Sandor grunted affirmatively. "Few days ago. After." He colored hotly. He wondered if she knew that Tyrion was well aware that Sandor had been in her bed. That he'd stained her sheets.

Lenna didn't seem bothered in the slightest. "The queen offered me an interesting alternative," she said lightly, looking down at her glass.

"She did?" he asked, his breathing becoming shallow. He'd not said a word to her about Tyrion's idea, not for weeks. He couldn't stand to think it wouldn't come to pass, could not share that hope with her until it was more certain.

"Aye," she replied slowly. "She suggested that another man be substituted for your brother."

"Who?" he asked lowly, still not believing the conniving siblings would really offer him.

"You," she said softly, turning her moss-green gaze to him. It felt like a fist to his kidneys to see such hope there. "She offered you."

"And what did you say?" he asked, throat working. _She could have said no...she could have refused...she should refuse...it's daft..._

She looked at him with real offense. "I agreed, of course." She pulled away slightly.

He grabbed her hand even as a hot blade of joy slashed him in the stomach. "I'm sorry," he said lamely. "I didn't mean-"

"I do not regret what we did," she said quietly. "I'm glad it was you. I've only ever wanted it to be you, and I'd do it again."

Sandor didn't know if that was an invitation or not, but he took it as one. His earlier reticence to be the first one to act vanished in a puddle of want. He slid his arm around her single-mindedly, dragging her to him as he buried his other hand in her hair. As soon as his mouth found hers, she opened her lips to him, and he felt himself burn with frenzy.

Before he knew quite what he was doing, he had torn the dressing gown from her along with her chemise. They puddled on the floor where he threw them, not bothering to look where they landed. His tunic and trousers followed soon after. She moved to stretch out against her bed, one knee drawn up as she reclined on her elbows, looking like a goddess in repose. Within moments he was looming above her, fitting himself against her, insinuating himself between her legs. She parted them willingly, a hand wrapping around the back of his neck. Her mouth was opened and her eyes had gone dark, and gods help him, he knew he wouldn't stop again. He looked away, clamping his jaw, trying to calm himself enough to at least go slowly. Her other little hand came up to rest on his cheek, turning him to look at her.

 _Fuck_ , he thought, looking down at her with her eyes shining, her breasts heaving. He nipped at her mouth, wanting to see it red and swollen, wanting to feel her little gasps and pants as she stole his own breath. She rewarded him by arching against him, pressing her chest to his, the softness of her making it difficult to think at all, let alone think straight.

He lowered his mouth to her neck, her mouth by his ear as he licked and suckled the pale flesh over her pulse. "Don't hold back," she whispered. "I don't want you to hold back."

The denial splintered, and he hauled her toward him, hands beneath her hips. His cock brushed against the spot that drove her wild, and his fingers trailed across her body, tweaking and twisting all the places he knew she liked, dipping between her thighs to find her dripping already. He groaned heartily, and it turned into a gasp as her slim fingers closed around him and guided him towards her.

 _Gods, but she's always been bold_ , he thought before all thought fled, replaced only by sensation, the heat and slick and softness, a crimson haze.

He sank into her slowly, relishing the sensation of her giving way under him. He slid in easily, though she was snug around him. Her breath hitched and he worried that he'd hurt her again, but then her hips twitched and he lunged, her head thrown back as she grasped his arms. He rocked into her with little regard for her pleasure, but her soft, throaty cries propelled him onwards, the way her hips bucked against his, unschooled but eager, telling him that she did enjoy him. Release came upon him quickly, too quickly, and in a thrill of terror at Tyrion's warning, he pulled away from her and spilled himself in thick, pulsating arcs across her belly.

She lay beneath him with her hands about her ears and panting, a rosy flush spreading from her breastbone to her cheeks. There was a rivulet of sweat running between her breasts, and he wondered if it belonged to him or her. He slid a hand between her legs and within minutes he had her keening beneath him, her body taut and gleaming with exertion, her hair spread around her head in a pillow in a wild tangle. He felt prickles of shame along his neck even as she came apart beneath him, clutching at him and breathing the syllables of his name in no particular order. He hadn't meant for it to be so quick. He'd lost his control, hadn't thought about making it good for her. She looked up at him smiling, eyes darkened and sated, but still he wished he'd taken his time. He didn't know how much they had left.

She rested beside him and he stroked her soft curls, still mourning the loss of their predecessors, looking forward to them growing again. They twisted around his fingers, clinging and twining, and she regained her breath. She shifted against him and he made himself get up.

He went to her ewer and moistened a cloth, moving back to her and wiping her belly clean. She watched him so intently that he felt his neck heat, but his tongue had grown thick and he could think of nothing to say. He felt like a green lad who had been too eager and had spilled himself inconsiderately.

"Sorry," he said quietly. "I didn't mean-"

"Why did you pull away?" she asked, interrupting him. "Isn't a man supposed to-" now she colored, clearing her throat, "inside a woman?"

Now he was blushing like a squire. She could be blunt, almost as blunt as he was, but certainly about different things.

He crawled back into the bed beside her, going face down into her pillows as he lay on his belly so she couldn't see his expression. He took a few long, shuddering breaths, feeling her hand running along his ribs. He turned his head to look at her, feeling undoubtedly shy now.

"Not trying to put a pup in you," he said at last, feeling like he couldn't get any air.

"Oh," she said, a realization clicking into place. "No." His heart shrank and withered in the space of the word. "Not yet."

 _Yet_.

The word stretched with possibility. She wanted his pups, and hope fluttered against his ribs wildly. He'd dreamed of it, certainly, of watching her grow round with them, cradling them to her breast, singing to them and playing with them. It had been one of his fondest and most troublesome imaginings. She said she loved him, and now she had confirmed that she would be be pleased to _marry_ him, to bear his pups. It didn't make sense, and it muddled his head.

One part of him rejoiced, just as it had that day in the Sept when she had told him that she loved him. The same war of disbelief and elation was battling beneath his breastbone. It was at once the thing he most wanted and the what he most dreaded. He wanted her with a ferocity that made him quail, but he also wanted to keep her safe from every possible harm. Marriage to him was certainly not the death sentence that it was with his brother, but he was hardly a desirable husband. He had little to offer her besides himself. His holdings were paltry, especially in comparison to what she'd been born to. Marriage to him would be more than a step down, it would be a fall in itself. He wasn't respectable. He was the second son of a minor knight, and he wasn't even a knight himself. He had no honor, and his name was a slur on most tongues. He wasn't ashamed for himself, but he might be ashamed if he tarnished her in any way, even if it meant she was his.

His only shame was knowing he could not refuse. At least she wouldn't be tied to his brother.

He was lost in his own head, only brought back to where he was when she whispered his name. She had wrapped her arms around him, little as they were, and she was looking at him intently, something like sorrow on her face mixed with a good bit of fear.

"Do you...do you not want children, Sandor?"

He looked at her in disbelief. She thought he didn't want children with her? The realization that she was just as uncertain as he was hit him like a blow to the stomach. Here he'd spent years denying that she could ever think of him as anything other than a friend, it had never occurred to him that she would be unsure of what he wanted from her. _You've never told her what you want_ , he thought, pain lacerating through him. _Tell her while you can, if you can._

"Yes," he croaked, letting the answer be torn from him. "Of course I do. With you." He thought of them, robust little brutes with gray eyes and curling hair. How often had he seen them in his imaginings? In his dreams? The image of her swollen with his pup, or cradling a hearty infant, or singing to them in their cradles had haunted him for years, bittersweet and full of crackling hope. A life spent next to her, their sons running wild just as he had. And maybe, if the gods were real, there would be a girl, as pretty as her mother with a little rosebud for a mouth.

He hazarded a glance at her only to find her looking solemnly back at him, the barest tendril of a smile making a dimple appear in her cheek. "Good," she replied.

"Lenna," he said, only it came out a whisper as he tried to gain courage from her name. "You must know that I… I want…"

"What?"

"I want you," he exhaled. "I want all of it with you." _Whatever you'll give me,_ he thought wildly _, babes, a home, my colors around your shoulders_. _Whatever you'll give me._

She smiled and he thought his heart would break. Her throat was working, and he knew she was struggling for words. His Lenna, who always knew what to say, was at a loss. Her cheeks were wet, but she was smiling. He'd never understand why she cried so damn much, but it was a relief to see tears running down her cheeks. She'd been dry eyed and hollow for so long, it made him glad to see such feeling. Still, she couldn't talk, instead she buried her face against his neck and curled her hands into his hair.

She didn't sob, didn't wail, just lay like that against him with her tears on his neck as his hands traced up and down her back. He didn't know what to do, and he wished she would talk. He felt raw, nerves flayed and trembling. She couldn't possibly know how disturbing it was to him to have said that, to have told her. He perversely felt that if he spoke about such things he was writing his own doom. He'd learned early to have no expectations of other people, of life at all. To have them was to invite disaster and despair. He was cursed by the gods, if they existed, cursed by the world if they didn't. He fervently wished never to bring such misery down on her.

It had been the root of why he'd kept her at arm's-length for so long, even as he grew addicted to touching her, kissing her, hearing her soft cries in his ears. He'd become dependent on her smiles, her fingers in his, her quiet words and encouragement. She said she loved him, but what did she know of love? _What do you know either, except that you love her?_ He had no doubt, not any more, that the cumbersome thing he bore around in his chest was love. He wondered what it felt like to her. It grew heavier by the day, by the hour. Did it threaten to crush her, too, or was it the kind of feeling the maids in her damn books felt, all tremulous sighing? He didn't much care, except that he did. He was convinced that one day she would look at him and see what he really was, not what she'd always wanted to see, and what she felt for him would die a fleeting death at his unmasking. He was only a lumbering monster with a blackened core, grasping and greedy for the one sliver of grace that had ever been offered to him.

"Good," she murmured against his shoulder, dragging his attention to her. "I'm glad. I had been afraid...never mind. I want it, too."

He pressed her closer, fingers counting the bumps of her spine. "I'm not sure it would be for the best," he said lowly. "But I'll not say no. I'm too selfish." Aye, he'd take her without compunction.

"Why wouldn't it?"

"Not everyone thinks of me the way you do," he said quietly. "Most think I'm a monster. Just like him."

"They don't know you," she replied, and his lip twitched to hear the defensiveness in her voice.

"It won't be good for you, being tied to me."

"Yes, it will," she replied ferociously. "I don't care what anyone else thinks or says, Sandor. You should know that. I've survived this long without their approval, I can go on without it until the end of my days. As long as I'm with you. I'd sneak to the West with you tonight. If you wanted me to."

"You would?" he asked, twisting his neck to look down at her, Bronn's idea echoing in his head.

"Aye," she said softly. "I'd follow you anywhere."

He said nothing else, drawing her back so she rested on his shoulder.

The bells started tolling the next afternoon. He closed his eyes to hear them, knowing what was coming. His men were still exercising, grunting and sweating with the effort, but he called them down and sent them to rest. They'd need it.

He went to the small council almost immediately. Tyrion had instructed his commanders to come as soon as Stannis' fleet was sighted. He found the Imp poring over the maps with his hands braced widely, his clever eyes darting hither and thither.

"Clegane," he said sharply. "Your men?"

"Resting, my lord," he replied, "but ready."

Bronn slipped into the room, along with Jacelyn Bywater, commander of the city watch. The four men leaned over the maps. Sandor quickly took in the position of Stannis' fleet, still at sea but approaching the harbor.

"He will bring them in here, along the Rush. They will attempt to take the Mud Gate, and barring that, to scale the walls there. They were are lower there, but well-defended. We have scorpions, trebuchets, large numbers of archers, but we will need to head them off on the beaches."

"Aye, my lord," Sandor said.

"We'll provide cover," he replied. "I'll be here, along with Bywater. Once the fleet has passed into the mouth of the Rush, Bronn will raise the chain."

"How?"

"It's already been laid," Bronn replied. "My men will winch it into position when the time is right."

Sandor nodded. "What about the ships left in harbor? The bulk of the fleet will surely stay out of the river. Not enough room."

"Yes," Tyrion replied. "They will certainly be attempting to weaken our defenses there. Our fleet is ready, and I have a plan. Have no worries there." Sandor looked at him skeptically. The Imp ignored him. "The watch bells have tolled. Now we wait. When they toll again, we will assemble in the throne room. We are ready for them."

Sandor nearly rolled his eyes at the little lord's attempt to affect a commanding tone. He wondered if it helped such men to speak like that, if it aided them in gathering their courage. He'd never had a taste for fine speeches. He'd rather just get it done with.

"I suggest you all rest as you are able. We will need our strength."

Sandor grunted and turned, Bronn on his heels. Sandor didn't even have the will to be annoyed at his company.

Together they stumbled into the mess. Sandor ate quickly, knowing better than to go into such a situation on an empty stomach, but wary of eating too close to battle. That kind of exertion made men ill, caused them to lose precious time in retching. He washed down the stew with ale, he and Bronn sitting without speaking. He found himself actually wondering what the sellsword was thinking. He was uncharacteristically silent.

"What are you still doing sitting there, man?" Bronn asked peevishly over the rim of his mug. They'd just finished their third beer, and Bronn lifted a finger for another. Sandor hoped the sellsword was sober by the time the attack came. It was one thing to take liquid courage into battle with you, another to be so drunk you couldn't swing a sword, or winch a chain. Bronn was looking back at him with an eyebrow cocked, hands wrapped around his tankard like it was a bloody cup of tea. "If you don't go to her now, I will, and convince her to elope with me. It's not too late to run, and I can be very convincing."

"Shut up," Sandor said with a scowl, looking around.

"Go on," Bronn said again. "I'll take care of your lads. Say your goodbyes."

Sandor quickly quaffed the beer and rose from his seat to make his way to her room. Her door was already open when he knocked, Lenna pacing anxiously up and down the length of her chamber. When she saw him, her shoulders visibly relaxed and she went to him quickly, closing the door behind him.

"I'm to go to the queen immediately," she said quietly. "She just sent a runner." He laid his hand over one of hers, picking it up and pressing a kiss to her palm. She was trembling.

"And you should go," he said. "She will worry where you are."

"I was waiting to see if you'd come," she whispered.

He tried to smile, but it was impossible. He grimaced instead. She looked up at him with fear in her eyes.

"What will happen if-"

"Don't worry," he replied. "I've told you before. Not while I draw breath."

 _You cannot think of the alternative_.

She nodded, then lay her head against his chest, her eyes closed. He knew she was listening for his heart. He raised a hand and let it rest for a moment against her dark head. It was a promise he didn't know if he could keep. He had forced himself not to think of it, to focus solely on winning. He did not want to consider the possibility of Stannis Baratheon carrying the victory. He did not want to think of what that might mean.

He knew Tyrion believed himself when he said that Stannis would do her no harm. And Sandor even believed that himself. Stannis Baratheon would indeed make sure no ill befell the daughter of Wyman Manderly or Sansa Stark. Both their houses could be far to useful to him, if only they would bend the knee, swear themselves to him. Sansa and Lenna would become his hostage-guests rather than Cersei's, probably treated better, more like the highborn women they were. He had no doubt of that. But it wouldn't be Stannis himself that stormed the Keep. He knew what happened to women in sieges, and he did not dare even think of that even with all of Tyrion's assurances.

 _Go to her room and bar the door_ , he thought derisively. _A door doesn't stop a warhammer and a man with rage in his blood._

He focused on feeling her breathing against him, on her warmth in his arms, making a promise to himself that it would not be the last time. He wondered how she wanted him to behave at a moment like this, both of them aware of what was at risk. Did she want him to pretend at being a knight? To whisper nonsense to her, to make vows?

A look to her face relieved him. She was gazing at _him_ , and he saw no trace of anything but concern and agitation. Lenna Manderly did not want some poncey knight. She was well contented with her brute.

"You have to go," he said at last, taking in the darkness of her eyes, the green muted and swirled with the amber and gray like a whirlpool, the pale gleam of her skin luminous. "If she's sent for you, you must go. Before someone is sent looking for you."

She pulled back, drawing her palm along his cheek. He turned his face and kissed it. "Do you have it?" He nodded, her handkerchief just tangible between his hauberk and plate. She nodded seriously. "I'll be praying, love."

The endearment on her lips did warrant a quirk of his lip. With a swift sweep of his hand across her face and the most perfunctory of kisses, he was out her door again and striding back toward his men. He had the burning desire to look back at her over his shoulder, but he did not want to see her crying, or to see that she'd already turned from him. Instead, he briefly closed his eyes and conjured the sight of her as she had stood just a moment before, her face turned up to him with that staggering expression of concern and care written across it. He stood up a little straighter, and he did not look back.

A/N: Are you ready to rumble?! Hooah.

Forgive me. A baby carrot cake with lemon peel to get us through the next bit. Thank you again to everyone who has been reviewing and leaving thoughts. Apparently, I can't write anything less than 8,000 words any more. Thanks for bearing with the long chapters.

A guest asked last chapter if I had it plotted through S7. The answer is yes. From where I'm sitting, I'm looking at turning out about 30 more chapters. Yeah. I probably should have broken the damn thing up into parts, but...too late now! Hope you stick around for the ride!

I might be MIA for about a week. The next couple are done, but they want polishing and this is a busy, busy week. Just a heads up. Love.


	37. Chapter 37

Lenna XXXVII

Lenna had never experienced a battle before, let alone a siege. Robert's Rebellion had been the war of her youth, but it had happened when she was so young, and the fighting was so far away that her memories of it didn't even seem real or even that substantial. She was small enough that she barely noted it. Little about her life had changed except for the prolonged absence of her father and brothers. If she missed them, she didn't remember. She and her mother had gone about living as usual, and Lenna had enjoyed the ignorance and innocence of youth, never understanding that war was raging to the south. The New Castle had been a haven, untouched by the ravages of war experienced by King's Landing and elsewhere in the crownlands.

The terrorized milling of the courtiers and the zealous discipline of the guards in the throne room was overwhelming. Nothing had prepared her for what war felt like, what it looked like or sounded like. She had read everything there was to read on Robert's Rebellion, but not of the history books described the disconcerting conflagration of fear and anticipation. Excitement trembled in her innards, not unlike how she might feel the night before her nameday as a child. She didn't know that she liked that kind of anticipation in response to something so dangerous. If she wasn't mistaken, that strange madness has taken over everyone in the Keep from the nobles to the scullery maids, everyone going about their preparation with added intensity, avidity, and hunger.

Sansa's arm linked through hers was an anchor in the sea of anxiety. The girl was decidedly calm, her bearing steady and her hands free of tremors. She was faring better than Lenna in that regard. Her own fingers had set to trembling as soon as Sandor had left her rooms, his footsteps echoing down the passageway. She had waited for him to look back at her, but he didn't. She'd let out a breath like a sob, happy that he hadn't. If he'd glanced over her shoulder, it would have felt like goodbye.

There was no time to mull over such things. Sansa had caught her on her way to the queen, asking her politely to come with her to see the king. Of course, Lenna had agreed. What little strength she could lend the girl she would give freely. Shae had come with them as well, the normally impertinent maid rendered as pale and hesitant as they were, dark eyes enormous in her narrow face.

Lenna was surprised to see the figure of Tyrion Lannister hurrying toward them with his strange gait. He was armored, every inch of his small stature radiating authority.

"Lady Helenna, Lady Sansa," he called, his brow dark and heavy. His eyes flicked to Shae. He swallowed. "Sheila."

"Shae," she replied with annoyance. Lenna wondered why he would bother at such a moment.

"Surely you should be with the other highborn ladies with my sister? Has she not asked you?" he demanded, stopping before them with concern and a fair bit of irritation in his face. He looked older, the lines around his mouth carved deep as he frowned. It put Lenna to mind of Sandor.

"She has, my lord," Lenna assured him. "We will be on our way there shortly."

"What delays you?" he demanded. "We are expecting the first wave of attack at any moment."

"King Joffrey sent for me to see him off," Sansa replied shortly. "See, he comes now."

The king had entered the throne room, arrayed in fine armor. Lenna was unsurprised to see that it sported both lions and stags. He looked well in it, the gold of the plate almost the same hue as his hair, but something about it was too bright. _It is perfect_ , she thought, _and likely to stay that way_. Lenna felt her heart drop to see Sandor at his shoulder. He looked ready to charge that very moment, his sword at his hip, gauntlets on his hands. She somehow knew it was real, that he would be fighting, when she saw the gauntlets. He seldom wore them except in the tourneys. They made him seem foreign to her, his hands, which so often functioned for his tongue, covered and flexing like scales of some great snake. His eyes met hers briefly, and she saw his surprise and trepidation before the Hound ruthlessly shuttered his face.

"He is a great romantic, my nephew," Tyrion said acerbically, but Lenna saw the look he threw to she and Sandor. She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, forcing her attention to her nails, the tips of her shoes that peeked out from her skirt. Anything but her lover.

The word sent a shaft of desperation down her spine, and she turned her eyes on Tyrion, willing Sandor to hear her words and know they were meant for him instead.

"We will pray for your safe return, my lord," Lenna said quietly. Tyrion took her hand in his briefly and pressed it, his eyes doleful and dark. Lenna hoped the king did not see him do it. They had enough trouble with him already. Tyrion smiled wanly before passing by Shae.

"Stay safe, my lady," he murmured, just loud enough that Lenna caught it.

"And you, my lion," Shae replied, adjusting her shawl casually to divert attention. Her dark eyes found Lenna's as he walked away, and she saw her own fear and sadness mirrored in them. Sympathy hollowed her heart.

"Your king rides forth to battle," Joffrey said, his voice shrill as it echoed off the bare walls of the throne room. Lenna almost flinched. He was an inn-yard villain, a caricature of a king that they might see in the frequent touring shows that visited the capital to draw the crowds and take their coin for a few bawdy laughs. Joffrey thought he cut a regal figure, and had he been someone else, he might have. He was nothing but a cruel child pretending to be a man. "You should see him off with a kiss." To her credit, Sansa did not cringe. Lenna could not help but look at Sandor. A muscle near his eye twitched as the king withdrew his blade, presenting it to Sansa. He suffered. She knew that he suffered just as she did. "My new blade. Hearteater, I've named it. Kiss it. You'll kiss it again when I return and taste my uncle's blood."

Sansa did not move any closer, instead drawing herself up in a posture Lenna recognized well. It was her own whenever she was required to maintain her equanimity, to do or to say something she did not wish to, to find that fine line between acquiescence and integrity. With a steadying breath, she bent forward and kissed the blade, the long flow over her hair swinging down like hammered copper.

"Will you slay him yourself?" the girl asked as she stood up, her lovely face open and amenable. She was a tall young woman, likely still growing, and she would be taller than the king. Where Joffrey pretended to be kingly, Sansa could have been a queen in her bearing. For perhaps the first time, Lenna thought that perhaps the child would be a good one.

"If Stannis is fool enough to come near me," Joffrey replied meanly, his eyes resting only on Sansa. Sandor's eye twitched again and Lenna did not miss the short breath of annoyance and the flare of his nostrils. She wished their paths had not crossed. It was one thing to have seen him off, his mouth on hers so briefly, like he would return shortly. She'd liked that thought, it hadn't felt like a farewell, even though they both knew it could be. Seeing him here, though, the Hound looming over them all, it was unbearable to think of what was to come.

"So you'll be outside the gates fighting in the vanguard," Sansa continued, calling Lenna out of her unhappy musing. She'd have thought Sansa would want to leave as quickly as possible, to spend as little time with Joffrey as feasible. Instead, the girl was drawing the conversation out to an end Lenna did not understand. They should go to the queen as soon as possible. The men were on their way to the battlements. Soon it would begin.

"A king doesn't discuss battle plans with stupid girls," Joffrey spluttered.

"I'm sorry, your grace, you're right. I'm stupid," Sansa said, parroting back his words with little emotion, just like the little bird Sandor insisted she was. She held the king's gaze with neither humility or insolence, just flat reflection. "Of course you'll be in the vanguard. They say my brother Robb always goes where the fighting is the thickest and he's just a pretender."

Sansa was needling him, goading him, and though she didn't doubt there would be some kind of repercussion for her words later, Lenna didn't much care. She gathered Sansa didn't either. They both knew that Joffrey was to stay well away from the fighting, to take an observational post while his men did the work for him. King Robert would have never let other men fight for him in such a way.

Sansa's insinuation wasn't lost on the king, and his eyes were reptilian. "Your brother's turn will come. Both of you. And when it does, you shall both lick their blood from Hearteater, too."

Joffrey snapped his eyes over Lenna, his lip curling in a mixture of disgust and glee, before shooting one last glare at Sansa and leaving with the flutter of his fine new cloak. It was Lannister red. Lenna dropped a curtsey as he passed, allowing her eyes to search Sandor's face for what she hoped wasn't the last time. He was looking back at her with similar intensity, the gray eyes flat as steel. Then he brushed past her and followed the king, gait heavy and even.

"Some of those boys will never come back," Shae whispered, and Lenna knew she was speaking of Tyrion, of Sandor. It almost made Lenna smile to think of them as boys. She couldn't imagine Sandor as anything less than he was.

"Joffrey will," Sansa replied lifelessly. "The worst ones always live."

"Come, Sansa," Lenna said, linking her arm through the girl's again. "Let us go to the queen. We can do nothing but wait."

The saferoom in the Holdfast was dark, the only window an archer's slit that afforded no view at all except for the blackness of the night. The children of the court were playing, their mothers having had the good sense to bring their toys and some books. Lenna envied them their innocence, their little faces unworried, excitement in their voices. It must seem such a good time to them, a special treat, to be woken in the middle of the night and brought to that place to play with their friends. They were boisterous and laughing, completely unaware. Lenna again thought of her own childhood, safe in the New Castle and far away from the war. She feared that these children would not keep their ignorance for long.

The bells had begun tolling an hour before, and they had not yet stopped.

"I don't know why she wants me here. She hates me. She's always saying how stupid I am," Sansa said, her arms crossed defiantly. Lenna shushed her.

"Maybe she hates you less than she hates everyone else," Shae replied, barely keeping her voice down.

"I doubt it," Sansa retorted airily. If Lenna had thought that perhaps the girl was developing some sense, she needn't have hoped. She had handled herself too well with Joffrey to be so careless surrounded by ears that would love to set tongues wagging.

"Maybe she's jealous of you," Shae offered. Lenna rolled her eyes, not even bothering to hide her annoyance. She shushed them again. Shae looked at her with a touch of pique. _If she doesn't want to be treated like a child, she shouldn't act like one._

"Why would she be jealous?" Sansa asked, her upper lip drawn back incredulously.

"Quiet, both of you," Lenna said, her voice sharp and low, her lips pursed with irritation. "There are too many ears here for you to be talking thus. You are a highborn lady, Sansa, of course you are here. Same reason I am."

"But she likes you," Shae said in a sing-song voice, her eyebrow twitching upward. "You're her pet, are you not?"

 _Pet_. She reckoned that was exactly what she was, and what she had always been. A toy, a plaything, to be set aside and forgotten until she became useful again. Shae's accusation pierced her. She had no ready response, but any reply would have been cut off by the doors opening wide for the queen. Lenna was not sure she had ever seen quite that look about Cersei. She sauntered through the dingy room, the lamplight glowing mutely off of a breastplate she wore instead of a girdle. She cut an interesting figure, exuding almost lethal confidence, and Lenna wondered at the effect she was attempting. A warrior queen would not be her first association with Cersei Lannister.

"Sansa," the queen said as she spotted the girl. "I was wondering where our little dove had flown. You look pale, child. Is your red flower still blooming?"

"Yes," Sansa replied, embarrassment sending a tide of pink to her cheeks.

"Fitting isn't it," the queen continued, taking a glass of wine from a proffered tray. Lenna surmised that she had already had many glasses that night. Her features were dull but fierce, as if the wine had blunted and polished them, her eyes filmy and not quite focused. "Men will bleed out there and you will bleed in here. Help yourself to some wine."

"What's he doing here?" Sansa directed her question to Lenna as they sat, taking glasses from a trembling servant. Shae hovered near them, leaning against the wall. Her dark eyes were on the man that had caught Sansa's attention, and Lenna's stomach turned in revulsion.

"Ser Ilyn?" Cersei asked, clearly listening. "He's here to defend us. When the axes smash down those doors you may be glad to have him."

Lenna remembered Tyrion's words to her in the gardens, his entreaty that should the battle go to Stannis Baratheon that she make her way to her rooms. _As far from that man as possible_ , she thought, understanding at once that the queen had no intention of yielding. She'd be dead, her beautiful head lopped off, her golden Lannister hair in a pool of crimson blood like on of her family's banners, surrounded by her dead ladies and their murdered children. She'd take all of the court down with her.

 _Including you_.

She fought to keep her face still, praying fervently that Tyrion and Sandor and the rest of them did their jobs well that night. In that moment, she didn't care if they killed every last one of Stannis Baratheon's men, so long as she did not have face Ser Ilyn Payne and his wicked blade. He stood in the corner like a shadow, a wraith sent by the Stranger, his unnerving eyes wide and his mouth slack, hollow in the absence of a tongue.

"But we have guards to defend us," Sansa said weakly.

"Guards we have paid," the queen snapped. Her patience was nonexistent. Mercenaries had no stake in this fight beyond getting their coin. "Should the city fall they'll be the first ones out of the doors."

One of those very guards trotted up, bowing lowly despite being out of breath. Lenna was worried the man might collapse. "The guards caught a groom and two maids trying to steal away with a stolen horse and some gold cups, your grace."

"The battle's first traitors," Cersei said with a lift of her eyebrow. "Have Ser Ilyn see to them. Put their heads on spikes as a warning."

"Your grace," Lenna said, reaching out and laying her hand on the queen's wrist. "They are scared. They do not know what to do. Punish them later, do not have them killed."

Cersei looked back at her, the beautiful face stiff but her eyes glittering. "Dear Lenna, the only way to keep the smallfolk loyal is to make certain that they fear you more than they do the enemy." She turned her gaze on Sansa, drinking deeply from her goblet. "Remember that if you ever hope to become a queen, girl."

Sansa looked as horrified as Lenna felt, though she was careful not to let it show in her face.

"You said he was here to protect us," Sansa said, watching the man in black as he left the room scurrying like a rat.

"He is," the queen replied, laying her hand over Lenna's where it still rested on her arm. "Traitors are danger to us all. More wine." Lenna squeezed her eyes shut. "Will you sing for us? Read to us? Something?"

For perhaps the first time, Lenna saw Cersei Lannister truly afraid. She had the aspect of a cornered animal, her eyes wild even in the placid landscape of her face. They were little green flames, flicking madly.

"What would your grace like?" she asked, willing her voice to be strong, stroking the queen's hand. " _Castamere_?"

"No," she said quickly. "Something sweet, like you sang at Casterly Rock. Do you remember? Or at that banquet years ago, with the lutenist at my brother's command."

"I remember, your grace," Lenna replied. Of course she did, both of those nights had been revelatory. The first, as she sat in her red dress and sang in front of the court, that was first night she had been aware of how he watched her. By Casterly Rock she was already aware of what it was she felt for him, and knew what to call it. "I do not know many happy songs, I'm afraid."

Lenna sang the old ones, the ones the queen liked. She sang _Come again, sweet love_ , she sang _My heart is sair._ She sang childish songs she'd learned at her father's knee, warming despite her anxiety when Sansa's sweet little voice joined hers, the girl keeping those luminous blue eyes on her in exactly the same way Wynna had when they were young.

Cersei calmed, her eyes drifting shut at times. She drank constantly, and Lenna noted that she stirred a droplet of something from a vial hidden in her sleeve into her cup every few hours. She didn't need to wonder what it was, but she kept her eye on the queen nevertheless. Nightshade was good for nerves in small doses, but it would take just one drop too much.

Lenna grew too hoarse to sing, too hoarse and too anxious. There was no word from the battlements, no tidings except what they could hear from the slender windows. She had no idea what time it was. Other ladies had curled up on the stone floors, their arms pillowing their heads as best they could as they tried to sleep. Several of them had succeeded if their snoring was indicative. Lenna wished she could sleep, but she was wide awake, the trembling in her belly gradually seeping through her limbs.

"Wine?" Cersei offered. Lenna shook her head, watching Ser Dontos clumsily attempting to juggle. It made her cringe.

"Would you pray with me?" Sansa asked, her lips pale and barely moving. Lenna realized that she had been ignoring the girl, caught up in her own worries.

"Of course," Lenna said, reaching for the girl's hands. They were childike in her own. Lenna clasped them tightly.

"What are you doing?" Cersei demanded.

"Praying," Sansa replied, darting her eyes at the queen.

"How perfect of you," she said derisively. Lenna sighed. Cersei was clearly drunk. "Praying. What are you praying for?"

"For the gods to have mercy on us all." Sansa's voice had a note of incredulity in it that would have made Lenna stifle a laugh in any other situation.

"Oh," the queen said. "On all of us. Even me?"

"Of course, your grace," Lenna replied for the girl, laying her hand on the queen's again. "Do you pray for Joffrey, I wonder?" Cersei asked, her brow furrowed. "He has been cruel to you."

"Especially the king, your grace," Lenna replied. "I pray for the royal family every day."

"Such piety not even you can surpass, Lady Sansa," the queen said. "Do you pray for the one who beats you every day, too?"

"Joffrey is my-"

"Oh shut up, you little fool, praying to the gods to have mercy on us all," Cersei spat. "The gods have no mercy. That's why they're gods." She looked at Lenna. "My father told me that when he caught me praying. My mother had just died, you see, and I didn't understand the concept of death, the finality of it, and I thought if I prayed very very hard the gods would return my mother to me. I was four."

"Your father doesn't believe in the gods?" Sansa asked.

"He believes in them, he just doesn't like them very much," Cersei replied hotly. "I've no use for them. If you had sense, you wouldn't either. Useless. Lenna has always put stock in them, for whatever reason. I give her credit for more sense, but perhaps it is her one flaw. Something you have in common, perhaps."

Lenna let out a breath she did not know she had been holding.

"The only one, I'm afraid. Lady Helenna was not like you," Cersei said, looking at Sansa. "She made herself useful. At first Joffrey adored her, then Myrcella. Now Tommen. And me. And do you know what she did, little dove?"

Sansa looked at the queen hard.

"She was honest. Perhaps the only person in this Keep who is, other than the Hound. He's honest, too. But you, dove, you say what you're supposed to say, do what you're supposed to do, but you don't have heart. Perhaps this battle will teach you how to be a queen. How to do something and mean it, to commit to it." She waved over a servant. "One for her. Here," she said, thrusting the goblet into the girl's hand. "Sit. Drink." Sansa sipped daintily from her cup. Cersei snarled. "Not like that, _drink_ , girl." She looked at Lenna again, her eyes hard. "I should have been born a man. I would rather face a thousand swords than be shut up with this flock of frightened hens."

"You'd be fierce, your grace," Lenna replied, and she meant it. Perhaps the queen was right, perhaps that was the difference between her and Sansa Stark. The girl had not yet learned how to believe everything she said, everything she did, to find the balance between a lie and the truth, the balance that kept your head on your shoulders. Sansa was too like her father, too apt to deal in absolutes to see how to step through the quagmire.

"They are your guests under your protection," Sansa said, "you asked them here. How can you-"

Lenna wished the girl would shut up. Being corrected was not an invitation to open herself to more criticism. The child did not understand that it was better to be silent than to open herself up to more admonishment.

Cersei's head turned toward Sansa slowly, and Lenna might have trembled under such a gaze thrown at herself. Her face was a mask of stillness, the cracks through which her true self had bled now closed up, like she was a statue of a queen instead of made of living flesh. Lenna had seen that look before, and it never boded well.

"It was expected of me," Cersei said, the words clipped and precise. She reminded Lenna of Tyrion for a moment, always so careful of his words. "As it will be of you if you ever become Joffrey's queen." Lenna wondered if the child could detect the inflection of the queen's voice, the subtle stress of 'if.' "If my wretched brother should somehow prevail, these hens shall return to their cocks and crow of how my courage inspired them, lifted their spirits."

"And if the city should fall?" Sansa asked with a tinge of what could only be described as sass. _What in the seven hells is the girl thinking? Is she drunk?_ Lenna looked to find the girl's glass still mostly full. Not drunk then, just daft.

Cersei pounced like the lioness she fancied herself to be, eyes narrowed as she leaned forward. "You'd like that wouldn't you?" she hissed. "The Red Keep should hold for a time. Long enough for me to go to the walls and yield to Lord Stannis in person. If it were anyone else outside those gates I might have hoped for a private audience but this is Stannis Baratheon. I'd have a better chance of seducing his horse." Lenna saw color sweep over Sansa's face, felt her own cheeks pink at the queen's insinuation. Cersei looked at Lenna for a hard moment before Lenna dropped her eyes. "Have I shocked my little doves? Tears aren't a woman's only weapon. The best one is between your legs. Learn how to use it." Cersei sat back in her chair, arms draped loosely over the arms. For a terrible instant, Lenna saw a striking resemblance to Joffrey. After all, he had learned his ways at her breast. Cersei could be generous, but she was made of crueler stuff, at her heart impatient and unyielding. Lenna felt a fool.

"Drink," the queen said darkly, half to herself. "Do you have any notion of what happens when a city is sacked?" Lenna closed her eyes briefly, but the queen was looking at Sansa. The girl's eyes widened. "No, you wouldn't would you? If the city falls, these fine women shall be in for a bit of rape. Half of them will have bastards in their bellies come the morning. You'll be glad of your red flower then. When a man's blood is up anything with tits looks good, a precious thing like you will look very, very good. A slice of cake just waiting to be eaten."

Sansa's face was stricken, and she looked to Lenna for comfort.

"Lady Helenna will not be able to do anything for you. She will probably try. Would that she could have married my boy instead of you. No matter what happens, she'll have her own trials coming, by Ser Gregor or his little brother. I doubt either will be particularly gentle. Can you imagine having two such brutes coming after you, my dove? And still, does Lenna think of herself? No. She thinks of you. Of me. She'd put herself between any of us and danger, even if she had no hope."

"You do my too much credit, your grace," Lenna said lowly, desperate for a change in topic.

"I do not think so," Cersei said. "Lenna came to us at around your age. Alone. Largely forgotten, even by her own family." _Lies_. "But she never acted the great lady. Her name is not as powerful as yours, but her family has plenty of wealth, more than the Starks. Control of White Harbor, the largest city in your godsforsaken realm, and yet, she has walked these halls humbly. She found ways to serve, not be served. Where you, Sansa Stark, you have demanded and swanned as if you were already a queen."

"Your grace," Lenna said, laying her hand on Cersei's. She did not like the way her praises were being sung. Something was not right. The queen took her hand in her own, squeezing her fingers. "Your grace, she is but a child."

"She was," Cersei said, her face softening as she looked at Lenna, trailing a tapered finger along her cheekbone. "But she is a woman now. She must act it, and we must instruct her."

"I understand, your grace," Sansa said. "I am sorry."

"Sorry," Cersei replied, dropping Lenna's hand. "You don't know how sorry you are. We should all three be sorry. Sorry we were born women at all. Sorry that we should have to always suffer the consequences of the actions of men. They never ask us what we think, do they?"

Lenna looked at Sansa hard, the girl's eyes large as mirrors and reflecting turmoil.

"When we were young, Jaime and I were so much alike even our father couldn't tell us apart. I could never understand why they treated us differently. Jaime was taught to fight with sword and lance and mace, and I was taught to smile and sing and please. He was heir to Casterly Rock and I was sold like some horse to be ridden, just as Lenna will be. Just as you will be, little dove."

"You were Robert's queen," Sansa said weakly.

"And you will be Joffrey's," the queen said, raising her glass in a mocking toast. "And Lenna, gods help her, will probably be the Mountain's lady. There is little to be done. Enjoy."

Her ramblings made sense now. The queen's odd praise of Lenna was made clear. She was drunk, her mind muddled by the drops she continually added to her cup, and her guilt was speaking. That Cersei felt guilt at all made Lenna quake, her heart stuttering in her chest, her mouth going dry. Fear and apprehension trembled in her gut like eels.

 _Little to be done?_

Sansa's hand had grabbed hers and the girl lowered her head. "If I am able," she said weakly, "I will help. You cannot marry him. Either of them."

Lenna was struggling to formulate a reply when the doors to the room were thrown open, a familiar knight passing through them radiating agitation.

"Your grace," he panted. Lenna recognized him as a Lannister cousin, Lancel. They'd had little interaction, the boy having served as page under King Robert and made a knight shortly after his death. He looked at the queen with an intensity that confused Lenna. She was sure some unknowable current was passing between them.

"What news?" she demanded, trying to affect ease but failing, her face again tight.

"The Imp has set the river afire, your grace, hundreds of ships are burning. Stannis' fleet is destroyed, but his troops have landed outside the city walls."

Lenna felt sick to the pit of her stomach, trying hard to digest both piece of information. The river alight meant one thing. Tyrion had used the wildfire, had gone the direction she had dreaded. Troops landing meant Sandor was to be sent to meet them, to drive them back.

"Where is Joffrey?" Cersei demanded.

"On the battlements with Lord Tyrion," Lancel replied with a stutter.

"Bring him back inside the walls," the queen said lowly.

"Your grace-" the boy protested, his voice going high with disbelief and dismay.

"What?"

"The king must stay," he replied, his face imploring. "It is good for morale."

"Bring him back to his chambers. Now," Cersei said, her voice hard as granite.

"Not here?" Lancel asked in confusion.

"With the women and children?" she spat. "Do you want him to mocked as a coward for the rest of life?"

 _He already will be if he retreats now._

"No."

"Now." The young knight bowed sharply and left, trepidation in his stride. As soon as he had passed through the doors and the bar had been lowered, Cersei turned to look at Sansa again. "When I told you about Ser Ilyn earlier, I lied," she said, her voice like a sword against a whetstone. "Do you want to hear the truth? Want to know why he's really here? He's here for us. Stannis may take the city, he may take the throne, but he will not take us alive."

Sansa's eyes widened with horror, her pink mouth opening in shock. Lenna closed her eyes.

"But you knew that, didn't you, Lenna?"

"Aye, your grace. As soon as I saw him."

"What do you think of such an end?"

"I will continue to hope, your grace," she said levelly, "that we will not come to such."

"You were always able to see the best in any person, any situation. Let us hope that your effort is not in vain."

Silence fell between them, Lenna taking the time to sit in her own pool of stillness and _pray_. There was nothing else to be done. She refused to make light of what was happening. The king retreating into the Keep would be a grave mistake. How many battles had been lost when men simply lost heart? She might not like the king, but he was still the king. The troops would not want to keep fighting if they thought all hope was lost. The king's withdrawal to safety would look like a sign of impending defeat even if the battle had not yet turned.

She prayed for Sandor, knowing at that very moment he was somewhere outside those gates in a battle-rage. If given the chance, she would have been on the battlements herself, watching. Would she faint, she wondered, if she saw him fall? A rivulet of pain slid down her spine and seeped between her ribs. Her chest grew uncomfortably tight, her breath too shallow for comfort.

An hour passed, perhaps longer. Lenna was lost in her own thoughts, thinking about what Tyrion had told her. If Stannis won, she had to find a way out, a way to make toward her own rooms. Then the realization of the aftermath washed over her. If Stannis won and Sandor was alive, he would be taken prisoner, and likely executed. He might bend the knee, that might suffice, but his reputation...Lenna felt the weight of it perhaps for the first time. His association with the Lannister family, his brother, it all might mean it didn't matter if he bent the knee or not. How awful that she must sit and hope that his sheer size, his brute strength, would be enough to spare him if he did consent to serve a new king, that Stannis would see him as a useful enough tool not to kill him and mount his head on a spike.

She shuddered to realize she hadn't thought of it before, that instead she had almost been wishing that the king would fall. Now, she prayed for the threat of Gregor Clegane. If, by some miracle, the king was victorious, she would face only a known problem on the morrow, one that she might escape. There would be no chance for them if Stannis prevailed.

A hand was laid on her shoulder, and she looked up to find Cersei looking down on her, a glow behind those beryl-bright eyes. Her face must have failed her, the queen's brow furrowed in concern. Lenna could hear her own breathing, see the tremor in her own hands as they lay shaking in her lap like scared rabbits. Lenna raised her head, focusing on the queen and imagining gray eyes were looking back at her instead of green.

The doors were flung open again, Lancel striding into the room with darkness in his fair face. Cersei stood, drawing Lenna up beside her. She was surprised when the queen looped an arm through hers, and she felt the trembling of her fingers where she gripped her hand.

"The battle is lost, your grace," Lancel said, bowing curtly. Lenna locked her knees to stay upright. "Stannis' troops are at the gates. When the gold cloaks saw the king leaving, they lost all heart."

"Where is my son?" Cersei demanded shrilly, stepping toward Lancel.

"I want to escort him back to the battle," Lancel said, his fists balled at his sides as he attempted to stare down the queen.

"What do I care what you want?" the queen hissed. "Bring me-"

Lancel took a step forward, anger in his eyes. "Now listen to me-"

"Don't be afraid." Lenna turned to see Sansa standing, her face pretty and smooth. All eyes in the room turned from Cersei to her. "The queen has raised the drawbridge, this is safest place we can be. Joffrey's not hurt. He is fighting bravely." Lenna felt a twitch of pride. _She listened. She learned_. "His knights have rallied behind him. They will save the city. Shall we sing a hymn?"

Lenna was the first to go to her side and take her hand, the other noble ladies crowding around them. Sansa looked at Lenna and she tried to smile. Lenna returned it with more courage than she felt, but the two of them breathed together to begin.

 _Gentle Mother, font of mercy,_

 _Save our sons from war, we pray._

 _Stay the swords and stay the arrows,_

 _Let them know a better day._

 _Gentle Mother, strength of women,_

 _Help our daughters through this fray._

 _Soothe the wrath and tame the fury,_

 _Teach us all a kinder way._

The queen was leaving in a whirlwind of anger, little Tommen straggling behind her. Lenna did not want to know where they were going. She couldn't bear it. Gold and red splashed through her mind. She couldn't bear it.

 _Gentle Mother, font of mercy,_

 _Save our sons from war, we pray._

 _Stay the swords and stay the arrows,_

 _Let them know a better day._

Lenna watched as Sansa slipped out the side door, and Lenna hoped she was making swift progress back to her rooms. She and Shae looked at each other across the chamber, and Lenna felt for certain that it was a goodbye.

"If you will excuse me, ladies," she said softly, squeezing the hand of the women on either side of her. "I will fetch my prayer book. It will comfort us."

"There are no guards."

"We are quite safe," she lied. "I shall return shortly."

Lenna smiled and made her way to the side door with as much calm and deliberation as she could muster, trying to seem as nothing was amiss.

She broke into a run as soon as it was shut behind her, thoughts racing as fast as her feet. She didn't know why she had lied, had told some story about a prayer book. She had no intention of returning, not if Stannis had indeed won.

The trip took less time than she expected, and she swung her door open, halted in her tracks by the mesmerizing green glow that filled her room with a dance of dark and fire.

A/N: Eh, not my favorite chapter. Lots of back and forth on getting this one and the next turned out. It was more challenging than I expected, and it's definitely one my weaker episodes, but I hope you enjoy it anyway. I'm a perfectionist, and I'm more or less making myself post it to get to the "good stuff" that's coming up. Hopefully should have Sandor's perspective out on Wednesday, and then we can FINALLY move on. As useful as the show has been, I'm looking forward to not being tethered to it for a while. That's all I'll say about that, though.

Reviews are Love. Reviews are Motivation. Reviews make me write faster. Thank you to everyone who faithfully leaves comments.


	38. Chapter 38

Sandor XXXVII

It had taken all of his resolve not to turn back and look at her. He didn't remember the walk back to the mess, his head was too full. For the first time, Sandor Clegane cared whether he lived or died, and it frightened him. Since he'd been twelve, he'd not given a shit if he came back or not. The notion of dying on the battlefield had always seemed to him a good one, a clean death. Then again, he always felt he'd been passed over by death, surviving his brother's attack something of a perverse benediction from the gods. If that hadn't killed him, a man with a blade or a warhammer didn't intimidate him much, fleas to drive him mad but not enough to kill him.

Battle-rage was fueled by fervor, a lust for the fight. Caring about the outcome was an invitation for fate to try him. It was better not to. If he wanted to live, as most of them did, he might be too cautious, and caution led to hesitation. He'd seen men die because of that hesitation, a sliver of a moment too late to act and cut down for it. Having something to live for wasn't always a boon, and he couldn't pretend now that he would fight the same way that he had before, not knowing that somewhere in the Keep she was sitting and waiting for him to come back.

Instead, he decided he'd focus on the fight not to come back to her, but to protect her. That he knew how to do, to set his mind on his job and not the uncertainty of the next day, the next hour. At least, now where it concerned himself. He was all too aware of what could, what would, befall her if he failed. Stannis Baratheon was an honorable man, but he was a highborn lord. Highborn lords didn't take their own castles, they let their men do that for them. Sandor had seen enough of warfare to know what men did when their blood was running hot. Hell, his own brother was capable of the very worst outrages. Mercy wouldn't be forefront in the mind of a man-at-arms who was inebriated with the promise of triumph, thrilling in the humiliation of his foe. Such a man would not let a locked door stop him, or a lady's pleas move him. As long as he was living, Helenna Manderly's blood would not run down her own face, down her legs. The very idea made his vision turn red and his teeth set to a vicious bite.

He shook his head to clear it, scattering his dark thoughts like spiderwebs. The heat rolled over him like a thunderstorm in the Westerlands. The mess was packed to bursting, the gold cloaks and Lannister guards drinking in that fierce fashion that men do before battle. He wanted a tankard of strong ale himself, his throat suddenly parched. It was loud, men shouting and crowing as they clinked their cups, gathering their courage to go out and do their duty. Boasting always became exuberant before battle, men needing to feel bigger than they were, bigger than their enemies. Snagging a beer and looking around the room, he saw a lot of little men.

He wondered how many of them had actually seen a battle. The guards he'd drilled in the previous days were all too young to have fought in Robert's Rebellion, too young to have had much experience with actual fighting beyond a few skirmishes in the streets or the recent riots. Even if they had started as young as he had, and most hadn't, they wouldn't have had much to fight. The previous decade had been frustratingly peaceful. He'd been itching for war for years, but it hadn't come, the lords who had been robust warriors in his youth growing stout and red-faced, like dead King Robert.

He could only hope these new lads were made of sterner stuff than he thought they were, that they wouldn't turn heel and flee as soon as Stannis' troops made their landfall. He could only hope that they were as fierce as they obviously believed themselves to be, clapping each other on the back with the glint of blood-madness in their eyes. That, or he hoped Stannis' army was similarly comprised of green boys who had never known real bloodshed.

He let out a long breath in a grunt, a scowl settling over his face. He didn't have the patience or the stomach for revelry. It had no place before a could come later, after they had cause to celebrate and crow. He made his way back to the corner he'd been sitting in with Bronn, the men scattering before him like fish before a shark. He found the sellsword with a half-naked whore on his knee, his cup waving in the air as he lustily sang _Castamere_. The girl was lovely, he noted absently, pressed up against Bronn with her tits in his face. The sellsword was a better singer than he'd have thought. He might have smirked, but he was too low. Sandor wished that he'd chosen a different song. That one reminded him too much of Lenna. He needed to keep her out of his mind. She had no place here, not surrounded as he was by rough men and loose women.

"Welcome, friend," Bronn called out, spotting him. He knew was hard to miss, but Sandor grunted at being called friend. He didn't know that he wanted to call his uneasy truce with the man a friendship, but he reckoned he was about as close to a friend as he had. Sandor sat heavily, sliding onto the bench next to Balon Swann. He was new to the Kingsguard, having replaced Ser Preston Greenfield. Sandor had seen the man's corpse when it was carried back after the riots, torn to shreds and bloody. If it hadn't been for his armor and the fact that only one of their number was nowhere to be found, it would have been impossible to identify him. Sandor wondered how many would fall that night, if this fresh one with his cloak still as unblemished as snow, a quiet lad with a chest almost as brawny as his own, would survive the battle.

"This round's on me," Bronn said, sliding a pitcher of ale toward him and taking a seat on the opposite bench. "It's warm in here, ain't it?" Sandor grunted savagely, his scowl deepening. He felt like he was steaming between the anger and the heat. "Save your rage for later, friend," Bronn said with a half-smirk.

"Your Lord Imp's going to miss you," Sandor said darkly. Bronn grinned.

"Aye, expect he will someday. Not tonight," he quipped, raising his ale. Sandor drank deeply, grateful when Swann left them. "You have a plan, brother?"

 _Brother?_ "What do you mean?" Sandor bit out, taking another long slug of ale.

"C'mon," Bronn said, cocking his head to one side. "If we win this thing, do you have a plan?"

Sandor let out a huff that could have been a sigh. He caught his meaning, but it irked him that the sellsword would think to talk about such with him, especially now. _None of your fucking business_ , he wanted to growl. But his head was muddled, and he found himself oddly wanting to discuss it. Best think about it now and not let it cloud his thoughts and judgment later. If he let that happen, it didn't matter if he had a plan or not. He'd be dead, his corpse trodden into the mud that invariably followed battles..

The fact was, though, he didn't have a plan. Not really. "They've already said they'll negotiate. Replace my brother with me." It sounded lame in his own ears. The growing anticipation of the battle to come reinforced just how silly the idea sounded, how flimsy. Replace his brother with him? Did the Imp really believe that would happen? Did the queen? Surely it must be a fool's hope to think that the king would be prevailed upon to change his mind.

Sandor wondered if his brother had already been made aware of this plan, had already been offered his bride. There was no telling what Joffrey had already told him, no telling what Tywin had said, either. If his brother had already gotten wind of it, Sandor felt there was very little chance that such an exchange would be made. His brother might not be wealthy, but they were all fucking terrified of him. They needed only remember Elia Martell and her children, a queen and the little princess and prince, their broken bodies dead in that very Keep, crushed like ants.

"If they don't?" Bronn asked, cocking a brow as if to say that he thought it more likely Sandor would be named Hand of the King. A long, slow breath made his nostrils flare as he fought the urge to hit something. Frustration was good. Rage was good. His heart was pumping with anger and he'd need it later.

"Haven't thought on that." That much was true. He hadn't a fucking idea what they'd do if the negotiation wasn't successful. _What can I do?_ A powerful thought hit him like a morning star to the side of the head. _Gods_ , _what if she is carrying my bastard pup?_ He swatted the notion away, angry that any child she had could be thought such, even if it was his. He'd had her twice, three times counting the once he'd been more careful, but as Tyrion pointed out, it only took one time. A whelp could be growing in her already. The idea pleased him as much as it terrified him.

"You know what I'd do," Bronn said slowly with a lift of the brow and a sip of ale. Aye, Sandor knew what the sellsword would do. _He'd have already done it._ Sandor felt like an imbecile. She had said she'd go with him, follow him into the West. He should have taken her that night. They'd be halfway to anywhere else by now. "And what will you do if we lose?"

He did not want to think about that very possible eventuality. He had no plan in that event, there was nothing he could do. If Stannis won, there was no scenario that ended well for him, and few that were tolerable for her. No matter what they attempted, if Stannis Baratheon won, Sandor would be dead by week's end. With his reputation, his link to his brother, there was no possibility that he'd would be spared. He'd served the Lannisters too well. At least it would be a beheading. He wasn't a lord, but he wasn't lowborn either.

"She'll be safe," he replied stonily. He knew it would be true in the long term, even if in the short-

"She'll be raped," Bronn said equally as flatly, "and your head will be on a pike. You'll be of no fucking use to her."

"At least my head will be next to yours," Sandor snarled. He wondered what the man was trying to get at. What was the point of talking about the futility of the future on the eve of battle? It wasn't exactly inspiring.

"No," Bronn said grandly. "They'll not take me. I'll light out of here before they lay a hand on me. I like Lord Tyrion, but I'm not dying for this lot."

"The queen won't let her be harmed." _Another pretty lie_.

"The queen's got that wraith with her," Bronn said flatly. "She'll have her killed alongside all the rest."

Sandor had seen Ilyn Payne darting around like a shadow, heading in the direction of the Holdfast. The headsman was carrying his broadsword, and Sandor had known immediately what his purpose was. The queen was too proud to be taken as a hostage. She'd be dead before Stannis Baratheon would crow over her. It hadn't occurred to him that she'd take her ladies with her. He felt the trickle of fear start at the roots of his hair and puddle over his scalp, the length of his spine.

"There's no plan," Sandor ground out savagely. "There's nothing I can do except wait."

"You don't believe that," Bronn said flatly, almost like he was trying to convince himself.

"What would you have me do?" Sandor demanded, flicking his eyes and hoping none were listening. "I'm just the Lannister dog."

"Who says you have to be anyone's dog? You're only theirs because you stay theirs. No one is forcing you to do their bidding, no one owns you, man."

"I am the Lannister dog," he replied firmly. "Can't change that."

"You don't have any imagination," Bronn said, and Sandor was surprised to hear a thread of iron in his voice, a glint of distaste in his eye. No. Disappointment. "None at all."

Sandor turned his face, giving him the scar, and it was then that the bell tolled.

"Enough of this," he said, draining the tankard and wiping his mouth. "Now our work begins."

Bronn smirked at him again, raising what was left in his tankard. "One last drink before the war."

Side by side, they made their way to Tyrion's chambers en route to the throne room. Sandor waited impatiently by the door as the sellsword and the little Imp chattered to each other like magpies. His blood was beginning to itch, and he didn't want to keep Joffrey waiting. The little cunt would be unbearable to begin with, he didn't want to think of how irritating he'd be in one of his temper tantrums.

Tyrion was arrayed in the smallest set of armor Sandor had ever seen. He might have made a jape about it, but he was feeling grim. Nothing about the Imp was humorous, not tonight. Sandor had seen him somber plenty of times before, but he'd never seen quite that expression of gravity in his face and posture. He'd changed in the last year, some of his brash wit dulled by his captivity in the Eyrie. Lenna said he'd refused to talk about it, save to say that Lysa Arryn was just as insane as he'd always thought she was. Now, the Imp would have his first taste of actual warfare, having been sheltered from it his entire life. Where his brother had been schooled in tactics and combat, Tyrion had been made into a scholar, his only experience with war coming from the same dusty histories that Lenna had read.

Though he seemed considerably subdued, the little lord was selecting a weapon like a woman might choose ear bobs, finally settling on an axe. He picked it up gracelessly, his wrist flopping slightly under the weight, unaccustomed to wielding anything heftier than a pen.

"Do you know how to use that?" Bronn asked skeptically, shooting Sandor a glance. He kept his face impassive. It would do no one any good to tease the little lord.

"Chopped wood once," Tyrion replied jovially. His voice rang hollowly, like an empty cistern. "No, I watched my brother chop wood once."

Sandor let his chest expand to capacity in an effort not to humph. It had always made him angry, the number of battle commanders who had never raised their own sword. At least Robert and Ned Stark had, riding in the vanguards with strong arms and strong voices. He wondered what kind of chance they had with the Imp at their head, unused to hoisting his own weapon, for attending to his own protection.

"I saw you kill a man with a shield," Bronn said. That grabbed Sandor's attention. He'd never heard that story, and it seemed one that should have been told. "You'll be unstoppable with an axe."

Sandor grunted from his place by the door, but both men ignored him. They were looking at each other and Sandor wondered what had happened in Eyrie.

Tyrion stuck his hand out, grasping Bronn by the forearm with the familiarity of a brother and comrade. "Don't get killed," Bronn said, looking down at their hands. Sandor had never heard that kind of seriousness from him before, the sellsword usually smirking even when he was in earnest.

"Nor you, my friend." Tyrion's face was blank, but his eyes were sad. Sandor couldn't stand all this wallowing. _Get it on with it_.

"Are we friends now?" Bronn asked, sliding his thumbs into his belt with an air of self-satisfaction. He rocked back on his heels, biting his tongue.

"Of course we are," Tyrion answered, his voice uncharacteristically bright. "Just because I pay you for your service doesn't diminish our friendship."

"Enhances it really," Bronn joked.

"Oh, enhances," Tyrion mocked, shaking his hands for effect. "Fancy word for a sellsword."

"Been spending time with fancy folks. Got a taste for it. Figured I'd better start practicing for when I get that fancy castle and fancy highborn wife."

Sandor wished they would shut the fuck up. Tyrion shook his head, a smile cracking his hard face.

"And you, Clegane," he said, startling Sandor at his place by the door. "You have something to live for. Do your best not to disappoint her."

 _Something to live for_ , he thought darkly, _something to die for, too_. Sandor nodded rather than responding, watching as Tyrion gathered himself with a deep breath.

Tyrion swept out ahead of them, and Sandor could almost admire the determined set of his shoulders. Tyrion Lannister might be the unlikeliest of defenders, but he was going to do his level best. There was something to like in that, even if he still felt the pangs of jealousy each time he saw him. It has hard to admit that Lenna could love the Halfman, even if it was as a brother. He supposed that he should be grateful to Tyrion. He'd always done his best by her, and, in a way, by him.

He could be grateful, but he didn't have to like him.

Sandor waited for them to pass him as they headed toward the throne room. Bronn paused on his way out of the door, pulling even with Sandor before they parted ways. He looked up at him, barely coming to Sandor's shoulder.

"Good luck, brother," he said. "I hope I don't see you on the other side."

"The fuck-" Sandor snarled.

"You're thick as shit, aren't you?" Bronn laughed. Then he leaned closer, his "Get out of here, Clegane, and take her with you. She'll never be safe here, not really, and you know that. Get as far away from this hellhole as you can. You're smart, dog. Use your imagination. Hope I never see hide nor hair of either of you again."

Sandor had no reply, but Bronn clapped him on the shoulder and strode after the Imp, flexing his hands and stretching his shoulders in preparation. _She'll never be safe_. He knew it instinctively, had known it from the first time Cersei Lannister had expressed an interest in her as a girl. He'd slunk through the shadows of the Keep watching her, reporting back what he'd seen, and even then he'd known better than to tell the queen everything. He'd tried to protect her, and he'd always failed. Those days felt like a tale now, rosy and peaceful, the only threat to her that of loneliness, a princess locked in a tower, a damsel captured by a dragon. No true danger, no physical harm. Now, the sellsword was right. King's Landing would never afford her protection again, not even physical well-being, and they were looking at a night that might steal that from her before his brother got his hands on her. He just didn't know what he was supposed to do. Running right that moment, with the king waiting for him and an enemy army at their door, was impossible.

Joffrey was waiting, and he looked at Sandor with unhidden annoyance. He scowled. The boy thought there was a rush. He clearly didn't understand the flex of time in war, the approach far longer and tedious, the actual fight over in a flash. Their time was still ample, and it made no sense for them to wear themselves out before they began. He ignored Joffrey, his head teeming with no discernable organization. The only consistency was all of his thoughts was _her_. He growled to himself in frustration, deciding that the only thing he could do was make sure Stannis Baratheon lost the night. He needed to win a tomorrow to think, just one more tomorrow. Today was too spent.

The throne room was a flurry of activity, most of it nervous. Sandor thought they were all running about like chickens, big, stupid chickens about to lose their heads, knowing the henwife is near with her knife. Joffrey and his party cut through the room, leaving Sandor standing at the foot of the dais before the Iron Throne in his usual position. The little king was arrayed in his finest armor, armor that had no place in actual battle. At his hip hung a shining sword, unscratched and untried, a new one judging from the sharpness of the engravings on the sheath. Sandor smiled darkly. A boy pretending to be a king, putting on someone else's armor and going out to play at fighting.

He knew well and good that Joffrey would see no action that night. It had been gone over extensively in the strategy sessions, Sandor standing next to Jacelyn Bywater and wondering why he had taken a command. He'd have rather continued on as a bodyguard. _Lies_ , he thought to himself. _You can't bloody wait for it_.

He had been looking forward to it, perverse as it was. Even as he was saying his farewell to Lenna, his mind had been whirling around the fight to come, the opportunity to unsheath that longsword on his hip and unleash the seven hells. She had no idea what it was like, how it felt to run at another man, to make him bleed and fall. She had no idea, and he hoped she never did.

His humor died when he saw her. He hadn't expected to encounter her again, and he wasn't prepared. The sellsword's words hit him in the gut like arrows. She was with Sansa Stark and Tyrion's whore. In a sea of plate and cloaks, the three of them stood out like a colorful island, decked as they were in their gowns. Sansa was wearing pink, Lenna the same muted green he'd left her in. She didn't see him at first, her gaze focused solely on Sansa. The girl was fixated on the king, and it wasn't but another moment before Joffrey saw her. He smirked wickedly and abruptly turned his attention away from Jacelyn Bywater and to his betrothed.

 _Never safe, not here. Never here_.

Sandor had no choice but to follow him. He was to stay with the king until it was time to lead the sorties out of the Mud Gate. It could be hours before his men were needed. Joffrey prowled toward the women with a predatory glint in his eyes and Sandor groaned internally.

"Your king rides forth to battle," Joffrey crowed, gesturing widely like some posturing cock. Sandor strangled the humph that threatened to escape his throat. "You should see him off with a kiss." The Stark girl looked at him without expression, her blue eyes wide but without fear. Joffrey smirked again, withdrawing his stupid sword, holding it out as a smith might do in a shop. That's all it was the Joffrey, just another bauble. "My new blade. Hearteater, I've named it." _Fucking cunts and naming their swords._ "Kiss it. You'll kiss it again when I return and taste my uncle's blood."

The Stark girl did not move at first, but then she bent and hesitantly pressed her lips to the flat of the blade. When she stood, her face was still implacable though set so pleasantly it reminded him of Lenna.

 _She's learning, then_.

"Will you slay him yourself?" the girl asked, her voice bright with insincerity.

"If Stannis is fool enough to come near me," Joffrey replied, too thick to realize the girl wasn't serious. Sandor wagered the boy was flattered, eager to look strong in front of them all, and especially in front of Sansa Stark. If Sandor didn't know the king better, he'd think he was taken with her. But he did know better. Joffrey wanted to keep her afraid of him.

"So you'll be outside the gates fighting in the vanguard," Sansa continued, and Sandor's eyebrow jerked involuntarily. He wondered what the girl was doing, but he didn't mind the teasing at Joffrey's expense. Of course the boy wouldn't be in the vanguard.

"A king doesn't discuss battle plans with stupid girls," Joffrey replied peevishly, his fair wrinkling until his mouth looked like an arsehole.

"I'm sorry, your grace, you're right. I'm stupid," Sansa said airily. "Of course you'll be in the vanguard. They say my brother Robb always goes where the fighting is the thickest and he's just a pretender."

 _Of course he does,_ Sandor thought, _he's not a boy_. It would be one thing if Joffrey acknowledged that he was still a minor, unfit to rule in his own right. If he had simply ceded that control to his mother and his uncle, then perhaps he would be so despised. But no, Joff played at kingship the way other children played make-believe. Only his blunders had actually repercussions. Again, Sandor thought of Preston Greenfield. He hadn't liked the man, but neither did he think any man, especially a fighting man, should go out that way, torn limb from limb by an angry mob. Joffrey had cost the man a clean death.

Her jab landed true, the king's eyes narrowing as he looked at her. "Your brother's turn will come. Both of you. And when it does, you shall both lick their blood from Hearteater, too."

Sandor could not keep his gaze from Lenna. He had been resolved since the altercation began, keeping his focus solely on the king, but now the king was looking at Lenna with that old anger in his face. Sandor had no idea what Lenna had ever done to deserve that kind of hate, not from Joff, but he was almost grateful for the excuse to look at her.

 _One last time._

Sandor cursed himself for thinking that way, watching avidly as Lenna dropped a curtsy as the king passed. When he did, her eyes met Sandor's, and he felt a sensation not unlike the first time he'd met her gaze. A liquid, hot blast hit him in the stomach, but he held her eyes. The torchlight made them flicker, the shades of green and amber licking like flames. He allowed himself to hold her gaze a fraction of an instant longer than he should have, willing her to understand him, before he brushed past her to follow Joffrey to the battlements.

Tyrion was already there at the Mud Gate when they arrived, Bronn leaning against the battlements beside him. Joffrey's face crumpled into a sneer when he saw his uncle. Sandor did roll his eyes then. They had been butting heads constantly, to the point where the king refused to even talk to Tyrion. He wanted his uncle to let him make the major decisions about the battle. A boy with no experience whatsoever was even worse than the alternative.

"Where's our fleet?"

"On the way," Tyrion replied, his eyes scanning the horizon. Stannis had made a good decision coming in after dark. It was nearly impossible to tell what was going on in the harbor. Sandor didn't like it. For one, it made his job more difficult, beside the fact that it was a coward's trick.

"Why isn't it here now? They're coming!" Joffrey said, his voice high-pitched as a child's. He wheeled toward Sandor, his narrow face puckered. "Hound tell the Hand that his king has asked him a question."

He had no patience for this nonsense. He didn't bother to move. "The king has asked you a question."

"Lancel," Tyrion said, his voice as pleasant as if he was talking with friends. "Tell the king that the hand is extremely busy."

At least Lancel looked confused, his eyes darting between them. Sandor gave him not assistance. "The Hand of the King would like me to tell you to tell the king-"

"If I tell the Hound to cut you in half, he'll do it without second thought," Joffrey bit back, addressing his uncle directly, unable to maintain the stupid quarrel. Sandor let out a long, exasperated breath. _He's such a cunt_.

"That would make me 'The Quarterman' which doesn't have the same ring to it," Tyrion said lightly, trying to catch Sandor's eye. He was not in the mood for a jape. They had shit to do. Tyrion turned serious again, but this time his voice was steely. "Cut me in half and I won't be able to give the signal. No signal, no plan. No plan, and Stannis Baratheon takes the Iron Throne and puts your pinched little head up atop a gate somewhere. Might be quite amusing except my head will be up there too. I quite like my head and don't want to see it removed just yet." If Sandor wasn't so bloody annoyed, he might have enjoyed the Imp dressing down his nephew. He'd always enjoyed listening to Tyrion put the boy in his place, and it had become a far too infrequent occurrence since Joffrey had taken the throne. It was never needed more than it was at that moment.

Tyrion took up his watch again, the king scuffing his toes along the wall sullenly.

"Clegane," the Imp said sharply. Sandor stepped forward to look out on the scene before them.

In the pale wash of the moon, Stannis Baratheon's fleet had begun to enter the river.

"Bronn," Tyrion said, waving a hand. Bronn dipped his head curtly, but he caught Sandor's eye before he turned.

"Have the trebuchets ready to begin firing," Tyrion barked, Jacelyn Bywater turning on his heel and striding along the battlements to send the command. "Watch, Clegane. You'll need to see this."

Sandor didn't know what he was watching for at first. The Rush was oddly quiet, Stannis' fleet sailing surely through the mouth of the river. The royal fleet was conspicuously absent, save one lone galley.

"It that thing manned?" he asked.

Tyrion shook his head. "Watch."

The galley made its way into the midst of Stannis' fleet, the sailors ducking around. From his vantage point he could see them, tiny as ants, milling about in some confusion on their decks. Across the water, Stannis' forces were amassed, the starlight glinting off their pikes. The dull battle-roar had started like music to him, soft and sweet and steadily growing.

Stannis' fleet was massing in the river below, and a grating sound made its way over the din.

"That's the chain," Tyrion said, smiling almost smugly. Sandor could only watch as it was winched into place, effectively cutting off the fleet's means of escape. "They'll be very confused now, I expect. Trebuchets are like flies, even if they are trapped in the river. Easily batted away though annoying. Stannis will try to use the ships as a bridge to move his men. We'll see."

An old man had appeared next to Tyrion, illuminated by the brazier Sandor conscientiously avoided. He looked positively gleeful.

"Ready?" Tyrion asked no one in particular. Bronn had reappeared panting. "Do the honors."

He nodded, still catching his breath as he drew an arrow and knocked it on a longbow. Before he released it, though, he set it ablaze in the brazier, then let it fly.

If Sandor hadn't been so terrified, it might have been beautiful to watch. The arrow his the water, much to his confusion. He wondered absently why Tyrion would have a single archer fire a lone flaming arrow at a fleet of ships. It didn't take him long to figure out why.

It started slowly, a dull lick of green along the water's surface that might have been moonglow. It spread outward, riding the waves, growing in brightness and becoming incandescent. Sandor's mouth dropped open in awe mixed with horror, his scar throbbing in sympathy as the rush of sound spilled over the battlements.

 _Fire. Why fire?_

Few people understand that fire is deafening, especially a fire like that, massive and uncontrolled. It hisses and spits and roars, licking and stinging everything in its path. And this was no ordinary fire. As soon as he saw the first tendril of green, Sandor felt terror move through his bones to freeze his marrow. This was wildfire.

They watched as the fleet burned, the roar of the fire punctuated by the screams of men who would never hear another sound. Sandor knew that sound, all too intimately, the memory of his face being pressed to the coals following hot and vivid on its heels. He gritted his teeth, knees wanting to buckle as he watched helplessly.

Pity. He felt pity. Pity and terror. The stench came to them in wafts like puffs of summer breezes, sultry and smelling of burning flesh and hair. Sandor fought the urge to retch, feeling distinctly hot as he broke out into a fervid sweat. He clenched his teeth against the bile that rose, unable to look away from the scene of unfolding terror below him.

They watched for what seemed an eternity, the green of the wildfire illuminating Tyrion's Lannister beryl-bright eye, the other black as the bodies that would be left in its wake. The fire raged, but instead of retreat, Stannis pressed on.

"Rowboats," Tyrion said lowly, looking to Sandor. "Lead your men, Clegane."

 _Can't_ , he thought wildly. He didn't move, the green glow of the fire overtaking everything around him until all he could see or think or smell was fire.

"Clegane," Tyrion said, this time it was a bark. Sandor looked at him, wheeling back as he startled. He could feel his own pulse in his neck, rapid and unrelenting. "Lead your men."

Sandor found it in himself to nod, swallowing thickly and turning his back on the river of fire. He darted down the stairs as quickly as his lumbering body could take him, pushing down on the urge to hide. Instead, he channeled that terror into furor, bellowing at the top of his lungs to assemble his men.

It a motley assembly of guards and sellswords, half of them so young they couldn't grow beards. He'd been flummoxed when he'd gathered them, never quite understanding how poorly defended the city really was. He'd not been in the regular army for quite some time, his position in the Keep separating him from the men-at-arms in some sense. These green boys were inexperienced, and they were scared. He hoped that they were motivated by fear.

They stood looking at him, and he realized they expected him to speak. He wasn't about to rally them like Tyrion Lannister might. He had no noble words, no golden bullshit to spew. Instead, he glared at them as they surrounded him.

It had the desired effect, the men unsheathing their weapons and making their way toward the battlements with new desperation. He wondered how many of them would come back.

The rushed out of the Mud Gate with swords at the ready, Sandor himself yelling for courage. He couldn't explain what came over him when he got that first taste of battle, the almost white-hot rage that settled through him. It made him feel stronger than he was, bigger, and tougher, and meaner. It was better than being drunk, though not completely different. It bubbled in his blood just like alcohol, but instead of dulling his senses, it sharpened them like a knife on a whetstone.

Stannis' men were landing, dragging their boats ashore as they fell on them. He made his first kill, and it sang through him, the Baratheon man-at-arms falling with an imperceptible thud on the sand, his eyes open and unseeing as his blood stained the shore. Sandor might have wondered what the man's last thought had been, if he'd had a woman back home waiting for him, but there wasn't time to be nostalgic. It wasn't long before four or five others had joined the first, their bodies piling up so thick Sandor had a hard time navigating the uneven terrain.

He and his men cut their way through the forces coming ashore, but it became quickly apparent that there were too many of them. He didn't like what he saw when he scanned their number, noting far too many scarlet and gold cloaks on the fallen than he expected. Stannis' men just kept coming. He called the party back, and he was the last to retreat through the Mud Gate as it was closed behind them. He took the stairs three at the time until he reached Tyrion.

"There are more than we thought," he gasped, his chest heaving. "They keep coming. Where the fuck are they coming from?"

"He's a serious man, Stannis Baratheon," Tyrion replied. "He's sending them through the flames."

"They're coming ashore!" Joffrey cried, spittle flung from his mouth. _No shit, cunt-king_ _._

"Rain fire on them," Sandor said, desperate for some kind of relief. He could not take his men out there again without archers knocking some of them off. He was leading a defense, not a suicide mission. "Something, we need cover. Pick them off."

"There are too many," Joffrey gasped. The boy was pale. Sandor wanted to toss him over the battlements, wished he'd let Sansa Stark push him those months ago.

"No," Sandor replied. "Not too many, but they need thinning. My lord?"

Tyrion nodded. "We'll aim for the boats." He strode along the ramparts again. "Archers? Knock your arrows."

"Any of those flaming fucking arrows come near me, I'll strangle you with your own guts," Sandor shouted, already making his way back to his men.

They were milling about behind the gate, listening as Stannis Baratheon's men tried to take down. Sandor drew his sword again and strode among them. He was dripping with sweat, and a fair amount of blood. His breath was coming hard, and something had hit him in the face, making it difficult to breathe through his nose. He swiped at his face with his sword hand, narrowly missing skewering a passing squire.

"Any man dies with a clean sword," he shouted, his men back in formation, "I'll rape his fucking corpse."

He signalled, and Bywater opened the gate. Some of the Baratheon men made it through the gate, but Sandor's party fought them back until they were outside of the city walls. Tyrion made good, his arrows raining down on the advancing men as they attempted to land.

It was invigorating, his nerves and muscles screaming with pleasure as he swung his blade and countered with the long knife he kept in his boot. It was slow going, the sand bogging them down as he'd feared, but he enjoyed the submission of other men's flesh, his blades doing their work and leaving them slumped in heaps on the strand. The battle-rage took over, and there was not another thought in his head save hacking and slicing.

Then an arrow from the ramparts hit the man rushing him. He had made ready, digging in his feet and bracing his back in preparation for the inevitable clash. It didn't come, the soldier instead melting into a mass of flame, his screams somehow penetrating the clamor of fighting and worming their way straight into his hearing. His heart thudded, stuttered, and he froze.

He breath seemed to slow, and it filled his lungs like smoke. The soldier was writhing, half of his body engulfed in bright flame, so close Sandor felt the heat lick at his own scars, the old wound calling like to like. The smell of burning flesh, charred hair, invaded his nostrils and he nearly bent double. He wanted to tuck tail and run, but he could not move.

It would have been calamitous if someone else had not been there to stop the mad charge of the unseen foe from his right.

His attention was barely drawn in time to see his attacker go down, Bronn rocking back on his heels as the man slumped off of his sword, leaving a crimson streak along the gleaming steel.

Sandor looked at him for what felt like a long moment before calmly walking back through the gate. His men followed, Bywater barely managing to seal it shut behind them.

"What was that back there?" Bronn demanded. Sandor looked at him with no feeling whatsoever. He felt numb to the roots of his hair.

"Someone bring me a drink," he bellowed. A squire fumbled with a skin, handing it to him and spilling it. Sandor took a long draught, then spat its contents on the ground. "Fuck the water. Bring me wine."

Another skin was substituted, which Sandor gratefully drank. Dornish sour dribbled down his chin until there was none left. He threw the skin to the ground as he swiped his hand over his mouth.

 _Have to leave_. He wasn't thinking, he was going with instinct. Even before he'd watched that man burn to death, Sandor knew that his party was outnumbered. To go back out would be suicide.

"Can I get you some iced milk and some nice raspberries, too?" Tyrion Lannister was coming down the stairs as fast as his short legs would take him, an expression of pure rage on his face.

"Eat shit, dwarf," he said flatly.

"You're on the wrong side of the wall," Tyrion barked, pointing at the gate.

"I've lost half my men," he snarled back. "The Blackwater is on fire."

"Dog," Joffrey said, appearing behind Tyrion. _Gods, I hate his face._ "I command you to go back out there and fight."

"You're Kingsguard, Clegane," Tyrion said, his demeanor changed to pacifying. Sandor would not buy it. "You must fight them back or they're going to take this city. Your king's city." They both knew he didn't give a shit about the king's city, or the king. Tyrion was trying to remind him that somewhere in the Keep, Lenna was sitting and waiting for her fate.

 _Go, dog. Run._

"Fuck the Kingsguard," he ground out. "Fuck the city. Fuck the king."

Tyrion looked at him with a mixture of horror and disappointment. But it wasn't Tyrion Sandor was thinking about. His gaze flicked to Bronn, and the sellsword's face was stony. He never wanted to see him again. _He will never see me again,_ he promised himself. He jerked his chin once and Sandor turned, vanishing into the teeming mass of fighting men.

A/N: Hooooo boy. If you're a canon lover, sorry. I changed things up a bit to suit my purposes. I wasn't going for a blow-by-blow, though some of the dialogue in that episode was just too good to let go. So I stole it. Whoops. It was fun hanging out with Sandor so long in this chapter.

Let's see what happens next! I hope I have it up this weekend, but I can make no promises. Extremely busy time.

Thank you again for reading and reviewing! I love all feedback!


	39. Chapter 39

Lenna XXXIX

The door fell into place with a sound like a stone being lowered over a tomb. Lenna turned her back to it, resting against it after she had put the bar in place. She wondered for a moment if she was dreaming, or perhaps fear had driven her mad. Nothing looked right. Her chambers, so familiar, were awash in flickering green light, licking along the walls in undulations of color that reminded her of the murals in the father's halls of sunlight through waves. The bed and desk, the wardrobe, everything was illuminated with a ghostly glow, the vacillation of the blazing light making them almost appear to be moving on their own. Or, perhaps, like she was looking at them submerged underwater, a lady's chamber in some lost city beneath the sea. The bath of green was almost soothing, mesmerizing, but it filled her with dull, throbbing horror.

They had seen nothing from the Holdfast, the windows facing the city and away from the harbor. She had heard the reports, her heart thudding at the news that Tyrion had used his caches of wildfire. She'd never seen it before, had only ever found illuminations of it, the artist-scribes using their most vibrant greens in such a way that it appeared almost magical.

There was nothing magical about the glow that settled over her room, that drew her to the windows, though wondrous or awesome might do. She made her way to her window slowly, as if drawn against her will, an invisible winch pulling her toward them until she rested both hands on the casement and found herself facing the spectacle below. Lenna's view was of the bay, usually a dark expanse trembling with the soft light of moonglow, but now it was awash with eerie color. The air was rent with the cries of men, echoing off her walls. Lenna, for her faith, was never certain she believed in the idea of the Seven Hells, but if they existed, surely one of them had manifested itself outside the Red Keep that night.

From her height, she could see the whole harbor ablaze, ships rolling and blazing, their shapes almost indistinguishable in the inferno. They roiled violently as if the sea itself was boiling, and even from the distance she could feel the breath of heat on her cheeks.

It was beautiful and terrible, and she could not look away.

"I am going."

She barely heard him over the din of the fire. She had no idea it could be so loud, a dull, aching buzzing that penetrated her bones. She would know the voice that cut through the roar anywhere. Lenna spun around, hand at her throat as her eyes searched the dizzying dance of darkness and flame. He was slumped against the wall beside her desk. She had not seen him, but now the green light played eerily across his features, dipping into the scars, his face a jagged mess that seemed to writhe on its own, his burns like a nest of snakes.

"Sandor," she gasped, panic speeding her across the room to him. Her gut clenched painfully, her fear almost crippling her and sending her sprawling. If he was in her chambers, something dreadful must have happened. She could think of no other reason for him to be inside the Keep instead of out there in the midst of the fighting. "Are you wounded? What is wrong?"

"I will not die here," he rasped. "I will not die for them."

"Stannis has won-" she started, reaching a hand toward him. Even as she said it, she knew it didn't matter. Stannis Baratheon's victory was his death warrant.

"I cannot stay," he said lowly, his voice oddly trembling. His eyes were fixed on hers, the gray cast greenish in the strange light, like a sickness had taken over him. They were wide, the whites almost glowing, and for the first time, Lenna saw true fear in Sandor Clegane's face.

"Where will you go?" she asked, not entirely understanding him. Surely he didn't mean that he was going to try and escape. Her thoughts immediately raced to the maid and the groom, their heads now mounted above the gate of the Keep. If he was caught, he would be put there beside them.

"North," he rasped, grasping the hand that she'd placed on his shoulder. "I'm taking you home."

"I cannot leave-" she started to protest, dread tying her belly into knots. _Sansa._

"I'm not giving you a choice," he said ferociously. He staggered to his feet, drawing her with him. He grasped her head between his hands, the pressure of his grip almost making her wince. The eyes were burning into her, filled with pain, anger, and determination. "I will not leave you here. Do you know what will happen?" His voice went thick on the last, his obvious fear choking the syllables as his throat worked double-time to get them out. She thought about the queen, about her predictions of their fates if Stannis Baratheon's forces got to the women in the Holdfast. Hot terror spread delicately through her veins, turning cold as it lingered. She nodded.

"A rucksack. Do you have one?" She nodded again, feeling frozen to the spot. "Good. Where is it?"

She pointed one trembling finger to the chest at the foot of her bed. Sandor moved like he was drunk, wheeling toward the chest and going down on his knees as he dug it out. She watched as he carelessly rifled through her things, stuffing her two old woolen gowns in the bag before proceeding to upend her uneaten breakfast and lunch as well.

"Coin?" he demanded, still absorbed in his task. A pair of boots she hadn't worn since their journey North were added.

She moved as if in a trance to her desk, drawing out the fat bag of money and handing it to him. He hefted it and grunted absently before tossing it into the bag. Her fingers were drawn to the only other occupant of the drawer. She stood frozen at her desk, holding in her hand a box. It had originally been for her pens, but it had become a repository of the things he'd given her: notes from nameday wrappings, the ribbons when she wasn't wearing them, Renly Baratheon's antler.

He turned to her and snatched it from her hand, the way he was moving putting her into mind of some wild thing, a caged animal. He took it from her and opened it, his jaw tightening as he examined the contents. The eyes that found hers were somewhat tamed, the whites a little less pronounced, more of Sandor slipping through. He snapped the box shut and tossed it into the bag without a twitch in his jaw.

"Cloak. Get it," he rumbled, his voice thick. He was blinking at her as if he was waking from a deep sleep.

She did as he told her, opening the wardrobe doors and pulling it out. It was the same one she'd brought with her ten years ago. She'd never had another made, having worn it so seldom. She looked down at it dumbly. He took it from her carefully and slung it around her, fingers again gentle as he fastened it and smoothed it over her shoulders.

"We're going," he said firmly, lifting her chin to him with a forefinger. The fear and the anger had fled. He still looked fearsome. His hair was plastered to his head, sweaty and stringy, and she was sure that the gore on his face was the blood of other men. She looked over him quickly, assured that he wasn't hurt. He smelled of death and fighting, but his expression was open, brow raised and tone as calming as he could make it. She was grateful to him for the effort, though she was sure than any control he had was on the verge of breaking again. She felt as if any second she might accidentally unleash the fear that was roiling in her loose and unchecked. She did not know what would happen if she did.

"We're going now, and I'm taking you back to your father," he said, his broad hand cupping her cheek, thumb digging into her jaw. She nodded. "Come," he said, tugging her hand. She could not move. Fear flickered across his face again. "Lenna, you must move. We don't have time. I don't want to drag you." There was a note of pleading in his tone that woke her from her stupor.

She took a step forward. A bolt of pain raced through her chest and she gasped, remembering. "Sansa. Please, take Sansa."

"No," he growled, seizing her by the shoulders. His calm had vanished, and the face that leaned toward her was almost demonic, his eyes blazing and his teeth bared. Lenna didn't recognize him. "I don't give a fuck about the Stark girl. Let her figure her own shit out."

"Please, Sandor," she begged, hoping his name would soften him. "She's a child. She will be alone. Like I was."

He growled, seizing her by the hand and pulling her out the door. He strode down the hall with her beside him, knocking once on the Stark girl's door. There was, of course, no answer.

"There," he said, again yanking her down the passageway. "We tried.

Lenna wasn't about to leave the girl without more effort. She broke away from him, managing to twist her wrist from his grasp.

"Sansa," she shouted, running back toward the girl's rooms. "Sansa, open your door."

Sandor was trying to drag her away, an arm wrapped around her waist, but Sansa's door opened. Before Lenna could speak, Sandor had wedged himself between them, holding a struggling Lenna away from the Stark girl.

"Do you want to come with us, little bird?" he demanded. Sansa shrank back, looking to Lenna. She could see the horror in the girl's fine-boned features, in her slack jaw and drawn temples. Sandor lunged toward her, dragging Lenna with him. "I'll take you home to Winterfell, keep you safe. Do you want to go?"

"Stannis won't hurt me. I'll be safe here," she said, her voice trembling like autumn leaves, a dry, dead sound. She looked wildeyed between the two of them. Lenna wanted to shake her. She knew Sandor would not insist on taking Sansa with him, not the way he was insisting on taking her. She strained against him where he gripped her waist.

"Let me go," she said. "Clegane, let me go."

He looked down at Lenna with his face shuttered. It made Lenna shrink back from him. She wasn't looking into Sandor's face, but the Hound's.

"Suit yourself, little bird," he said. He more or less hoisted her around the waist, Lenna dragging her feet to slow him.

"Sansa," Lenna bit out. "Please."

To her surprise and fury, Sandor picked her up from the knees and hoisted her over his shoulder before starting down the corridor at a rapid pace. She wriggled to free herself, to look back at Sansa, and in that time, the Stark girl closed and barred her door. Lenna slumped in defeat, going limp against him as hot tears spilled down her cheeks.

They were almost to the courtyard before he stopped and lowered her to the ground.

"Will you walk now, or do I have to carry you out?" he demanded, his face close to hers. He was snarling at her. "Don't do something like that again, Lenna. We haven't enough time."

"But she's right, Sandor, Stannis won't hurt us. If we're caught-" _Gods, it doesn't matter_ , she thought violently. _If we're caught we both die, if we stay, just he does_. Panic welled in her belly and she looked around in bewilderment, not knowing what to do. There was nothing she could do.

"Look at me," he said savagely, taking her chin between his thumb and forefinger. "Stannis is a killer. The Lannisters are killers. Your father is a killer, your brothers are killers. I am a killer. Our sons will be killers one day. The world is built by killers, Lenna. He may have mercy on you, or he may not. Even if you survive unharmed, he will only find a way to use you, just like all the rest. But he sure as hell won't have mercy on me, and I'm not dying in this shit city, and I won't leave you behind. Now, stop wasting time or I'll have to sling you over my shoulder again."

 _Of course_ , she thought wildly. _He'll die, they'll put his head on a spike_. She looked at him, and with a slow breath slipped her hand in his. He did not hesitate, bolting like a runaway horse as he pulled her through the Keep, practically dragging her along to keep up with his massive stride. Lenna was out of breath by the time they reached the stables.

Lenna smelled horseflesh. Sandor pulled her behind him through the stalls. His massive warhorse was placidly munching oats in his stall as if there was nothing at all going on outside. He was already saddled, his bags full. Lenna wondered when Sandor had done it. He must have stopped to ready him before coming looking for her. He did not stoop to launch her into the saddle first. He mounted, then dragged her up to sit before him by her armpits. Lenna grasped the pommel with both hands as he cantered the beast out, ducking his head to avoid the beams and wrapping an arm around her waist. He roughly pulled the hood of his cloak up and did the same for her. She was grateful for the darkness, turning into him and leaning her head into his shoulder.

"Ready?" he asked. Lenna looked up at him wildeyed. His face was grim but his eyes were calm, almost apologetic. "Don't look. Please."

He unsheathed his sword, holding the reins in one hand as he spurred Stranger out of the stables and across the yard. She could hear the swarm of activity the racing patter of footfalls coming in their direction. The smell was overwhelming, the metallic tang of blood combining with shit and mud. There was a heavy thud to her right, and it started to rain, drops spattering against her skirts. She hadn't seen clouds earlier, was momentarily confused until she realized it wasn't rain at all when she heard the sound of a blade piercing flesh, the slide of blood along a sword as it was unlodged from its victim. The body, unseen by her, fell to the mud with a sickening squelch even as the blood seeped deep into her thin silk skirts.

She clung to the pommel, her hands shaking. She lost count of how many thuds she heard, trying to ignore then absolutely barbarous sounds issuing from his throat and chest. She wondered if all men grunted and groaned like that in the midst of fighting, if her own father had shouted viscerally with triumph, with rage, or with bloodlust. If her brothers had. If Ned Stark had. There was a note of enjoyment in it, something primal and terrifying.

She surmised that they were through the gates when the thuds and the grunts became fewer and less frequent. Eventually, they stopped altogether. He was breathing heavily against her, his chest rising and falling forcefully. The streets themselves became strangely quiet the further they got from the Keep. She drew her hood down, her hands still trembling violently. Lenna wondered where the people were, why they, too, weren't keeping vigil on such a night. The windows were dark and the streets rang with the sound of Stranger's hooves against the cobblestones. The whole city was bathed in that queer luminescence. The green and yellow lapped like water over the stones, undulating and flashing eerily. Lenna could still hear the sounds of the fighting behind them as they raced through the city.

They did not stop until they were well past the Sept, Baelor's statue cast in green and gold. Sandor finally paused in Cobbler's Square, looking about him as if making a decision, Stranger pawing at the ground. With a click of his tongue and a twist of the reins, they were hurtling forward again, this time north in the direction of the Old Gate.

They ducked and wove through the narrow streets, and as they approached the gate a din arose. The smallfolk were crowded there, many of them bearing packs on their backs, pushing carts, all desperate to get out of the city.

Sandor didn't hesitate to wade through them, though she was grateful he didn't swipe at them or kick to make his way through. Most scattered at the sound of Stranger's hooves, and they burst through the crowd on the other side like a stone from a trebuchet.

Lenna did her best to keep her seat, but she kept sliding forward, clinging to the pommel. She kept her head down as they rode, and as soon as they cleared the gates and the people became sparser, she heard Sandor sheath his sword. He pulled up on Stranger's reins, slowing him down to a trot, his arm tightening against her waist.

"Lenna," he said into her ear, his voice choked. "Lenna, are you alright?" She nodded mutely. He rested his forehead on her shoulder in what she thought was relief. She didn't move, didn't speak, and she wasn't entirely sure if she was breathing. "Forgive me," he muttered, spurring Stranger again, and sending them barreling off the road and into the thick forest.

Sandor XXXIX

He didn't know what he was doing. The sellsword's nod had broken some sort of tether, snapped it like a chicken bone, and he'd rushed into the barracks. It hadn't taken him but a moment to throw everything of value into a bag, and another ten or fifteen minutes to raid the kitchens and prepare Stranger for a hard ride. The grooms were all huddled in a corner, flinching like dogs about to be beaten when he shouted at them to stay away from the horse.

He didn't remember going to her room, just breaking through the door expecting to find her cowering in the corner. He'd built up the idea in his head, Lenna terrified and alone as she listened to the sounds of battle outside, and him saving her, rescuing her, like some cunt knight, ready to take her away from there. It must have been the war-fever raging in his brain, but he had been devastated to find it empty, the door unbarred and Lenna nowhere to be found. He had slumped against the wall in defeat, sure that this would be his end, thinking of the wraith of Ilyn Payne moving amongst the women with his blade, cutting them down and Lenna among them.

 _I don't want to die in this shit city_.

He didn't know what to do. There was no plan, the only inkling of one thwarted by her absence. He couldn't very well go back out into the fray, knew that his defection was more or less final. More than that, he didn't want to. He was not accustomed to humbling himself that way, and he wasn't about to start. There was also no way that he'd be able to convince Stannis Baratheon to let him live. He was fucked if he didn't leave, but he could not make himself move toward the door, not without her.

It snapped open with a bang like a scorpion bolt, and he almost started. She flew in, skirts in a whirl, going completely still as she saw the play of the wildfire on the walls. He watched her, not even convinced she was really there, drawn like one of her damn enchanted princesses to her casement windows. The light spilled across her pale skin gently, the green and gold not dissimilar from her eyes, and they were wide with fright and fascination.

 _Now._

"I'm going," he said abruptly, and when she whirled to him, he saw the immediate concern in her face.

"Sandor," she breathed, coming toward him on unsteady feet, clutching her skirts and going down roughly to her knees beside him on the floor. Her eyes searched his face and he winced. He knew he was smeared with mud and blood and who knew what else. "Are you wounded? What is wrong?" Her voice was shrill, her hands fluttering like birds at his shoulders, about his face, never quite touching.

"I will not die here," he replied, not know where to begin, knowing he didn't have enough time to properly explain. He would certainly die if he stayed, surely she knew that. There was only one person he would die for willingly, without a fight, and she was kneeling before him in a fright. "I will not die for them."

"Stannis has won-" she whispered. He wished he'd heeded Bronn's advice, he wished he'd taken her away weeks before. The least he should have done was have come up with some sort of fucking plan. He'd been an idiot.

"I cannot stay," he said forcefully. _I will not leave you here._

"Where will you go?" she asked, her dark brows huddled together.

"North," he choked, the idea forming from the glow of the wildfire. It grew stronger when he inhaled, the next words igniting like stoked kindling. "I'm taking you home."

"I cannot leave-" she protested.

"I'm not giving you a choice," he bit out with more fervor than he meant to, catching her hand. "I will not leave you here. Do you know what will happen?"

He had thought about it in flashes as he made his way to his bunk, threw a tunic and trousers into a bag along with a bag of money. Horrible visions of her bloody and bruised, cowering, fighting back against- he swallowed thickly, shaking his head. "A rucksack. Do you have one?"

She stared at him unblinking, her mouth open in incomprehension, just barely raising a finger to point to the chest at the foot of her bed. He stumbled to it, resisting the exhaustion that was already invading him and was compounded by the fear that made his heart beat hollowly in his breast. He found the bag and seized her two woolen dresses from the bottom of the chest along with a pair of Northern boots he'd never seen her wear. Her gowns would do them no good where they were going. "Coin?" he asked, relieved to hear her move toward her desk.

He barely turned to take the bag from her, measuring its weight in his hand before tossing it into the bag. Between them, he wagered they had plenty. He'd brought a portion of his tourney winnings, leaving the balance beneath the loose stone under his bunk. He couldn't weigh Stranger down with much more. He'd be carrying two people already, and though used to his oversized master, wasn't accustomed to such a burden.

She had not moved again, and he turned to see why. She was standing by her desk with a box in her hands. He'd never seen it before. It was long and narrow, not particularly deep, and he took it from her quickly. He was having trouble controlling his movements, thrill and terror making him feel drunk even though the Dornish sour he'd gulped had worn off long ago.

He snapped back the lid and felt like he'd been punched in the gut. In it lay the ribbons, slips of parchment with his writing on it, Renly's damned antler. He looked at her to find her gazing back at him like a stunned animal. She didn't even look like herself, fear smoothing her face until it almost wasn't recognizable, her eyes wide and her lips white. She looked like she had that day at the Hand's Tourney, convinced he could die.

 _We both will if you don't fucking move_.

He closed the box and slipped it into the bag, telling himself it was the practical thing to do, had nothing to do with the bright, white streak of inappropriate pleasure. After all, when they searched her rooms- and they would- it wouldn't do them any good for traces of their understanding to be discovered. He also couldn't bear to leave it, his belly hot and cold that she had kept _everything_ , even the first wrapping from years ago, wanting to know what that meant even as he threatened to be driven mad by fear.

 _Not now._

"Cloak. Get it," he said, feeling like he coming back into himself.

Still she moved sluggishly, hesitantly, and the irritation that crept into his blood made it difficult to be gentle as he wrapped her cloak around her shoulders and fastened it at her throat.

"We're going," he said firmly, lifting her chin to him with a forefinger. "We're going now, and I'm taking you back to your father." Her face was unresponsive, so he brushed his palm along her cheek. "Come," he said, taking her hand and tugging. She didn't budge, and trepidation filtered through him. "Lenna, you must move. We don't have time. I don't want to drag you." _I will get on my knees, but you must come._

She only managed a single step before halting again, her eyes flying wide. Her voice came out sharp and cracking. "Sansa. Please, take Sansa."

 _Always the damn Stark girl, never herself, never_ _ **me**_ _._ Sandor knew she didn't understand what she was demanding, did not comprehend that it was either the Stark or them, but it still made him furious. He cursed the day the Starks had come to King's Landing. If they'd stayed in the North where they belonged none of this bullshit would have happened.

"No," he replied hotly, "I don't give a fuck about the Stark girl. Let her figure her own shit out."

"Please, Sandor," she said, and he flinched at her use of his name. He hated when she used it like that, as a weapon. He was sure she wasn't aware that he knew, that he was fully cognizant that she was wheedling him. It tried his patience at the best of times, even as it worked as effectively as a charm. Now, it made him angry. "She's a child. She will be alone. Like I was."

No, she wasn't like Lenna had been. Sansa Stark had come with her family, had been protected and lived. A spoiled highborn brat. He'd felt from the moment the girl came to the Keep that Lenna would do something foolish to protect her, and he'd watched her come to closer and closer to losing her own head for the chit time and time again. Had she forgotten that even if they survived this battle, she was to be sold in marriage to his monstrous brother? Had she forgotten standing in the throne room as his blade sliced through her hair, grateful that it wasn't her throat? All because of the Starks and their damnable pride.

He seized her by the wrist and propelled them down the passageway, her bag slung across his shoulders. She wanted to bring Sansa Stark? Fine. He'd ask, but he knew the girl would not go. He would at least escape with a clear conscience. He pounded his gauntleted fist on the Stark girl's door once. It reverberated through the bones of his hand, making them ache.

"There," he said, pulling her away, hoping it would suffice. "We tried.

It didn't suffice, and Lenna twisted wildly from his grasp, careening back toward the girl's room. He lost his grip, not expecting her to actually fight him.

"Sansa," she shouted. "Sansa, open your door."

 _What the fuck is she doing_ , he thought wildly, chasing after her desperately and throwing an arm around her waist. He'd just hauled her away from the door when it opened and Sansa's peaked little face peered out.

 _She's going to get us all killed_ , he thought, not knowing if he meant Lenna or Sansa.

"Do you want to come with us, little bird?" he demanded, relieved to see the girl draw back in horror. He took a step forward menacingly hoping to scare her off completely. "I'll take you home to Winterfell, keep you safe. Do you want to go?"

"Stannis won't hurt me. I'll be safe here," she said, her weak voice shaking. He had a flash of how they must look, and it made him fiercely glad. Him, a beast covered in blood and gore, his arm wrapped around a struggling lady, intent on carrying her off.

"Let me go," Lenna said, pushing against his arms. "Clegane, let me go."

Her attempts to free herself were futile, and they both knew it. He had gentled his strength for years with her, but he wouldn't now. Her entreaties would not be heard, and he'd not budge, not with something so important in the balance.

He turned his attention to Sansa instead, leveling her with his flattest glare.

"Suit yourself, little bird." He hoped he never set eyes on the damn girl again, hauling Lenna against him and turning them away from her. In a last burst of effort, Lenna tried to escape his arms.

"Sansa," Lenna cried. "Please."

With a low growl, patience entirely spent, he slung Lenna over his shoulder like a sack of flour, just as he had the Stark girl on the day of the riots. He didn't run, but he set off at a good clip, his panic-fueled anger growing with each step. As long as the girl's door was in sight, she writhed against him, but when they rounded the corner, the fight went out of her and she sagged over his shoulder.

He sat her on her feet. Her eyes were down cast and for a moment he thought she'd bolt, his hand wrapped nearly double around her wrist, fragile as bird's bones.

"Will you walk now, or do I have to carry you out?" he asked, hearing the rage in his own voice. _Calm down, dog_. The anger was quickly replaced by something else. "Don't do something like that again, Lenna. We haven't enough time."

She looked up at him with her open face and he damned her eyes. They'd always held him immobile. "But she's right, Sandor, Stannis won't hurt us. If we're caught-" Her eyes crinkled at the corner and her chin began to wobble. _Fuck, she's going to start crying_.

"Look at me," he said harshly, and all he could think about was the minutes as they slipped away like pebbles in a landslide, minutes that should be seeing them fly North. "Stannis is a killer. The Lannisters are killers. Your father is a killer, your brothers are killers. I am a killer. Our sons will be killers one day. The world is built by killers, Lenna. He may have mercy on you, or he may not. Even if you survive unharmed, he will only find a way to use you, just like all the rest. But he sure as hell won't have mercy on me, and I'm not dying in this shit city, and I won't leave you behind. Now, stop wasting time or I'll have to sling you over my shoulder again."

She looked at him a long moment, the slipped that slender hand in his. He closed his eyes in relief even as he started down the passage at full tilt.

The rest he didn't really remember. She'd struggled to keep up with him, but she no longer dragged her heels, her hand grasping at his rather than laying limp. In the stables, he mounted Stranger and dragged her up in front of him after he'd loaded her bag. She trembled against him like a birch leaf, thin and fragile, her fear a silver underbelly. He gathered her to him, his arm around her waist clutching at the reins even as he unsheathed his sword. He'd drawn their hoods up, and he was gratified when she turned toward him, her face in his shoulder.

"Ready?" he asked. She did not respond, but she did turn her head and he saw the green glow of wildfire in the terror of her eyes. There was also trust, trust he wasn't sure he deserved. He took a breath the gird himself for what was to come, knowing that as soon as burst out of the stable doors the guards would be upon them. _Keep her safe_ , he thought sternly, trying to put all of his concentration on the fight to come, the fight she didn't know was coming. "Don't look. Please."

Battle-rage was more effective at erasing his memory than too much ale. He could always feel it starting, slowly pumping through his chest, down his legs, into his toes and fingers until every last inch of him was tense and ready. Then it took over, and all he saw was white, all he felt was the joyous stretch of muscle and the deep, satisfying clash of bone.

The next thing he knew it was midmorning.. The sun wasalmost overhead, and he was riding through underbrush, along a streambed that winked and played over smooth stones. He had little recollection of the flight through the city, wading through the crush of people as he lit out of the Old Gate and headed North. Not the Iron Gate, but the Old Gate that opened into the forests where Robert had enjoyed his hunting, where he'd been gored. The trip was hazy, bits and pieces creeping out here and there as he slowed Stranger to a relaxed trot. The sound of the battle had been deafening, but now all he heard was the singing of birds in the trees over head. He looked down at the top of Lenna's head, still in front of him on the saddle. She was slumped against him, her head lolling on his shoulder, and it was the scent of her hair as her hood fell away that brought him back into himself. He brought Stranger to an abrupt halt there in the wood.

Even though they'd stopped he still felt the reverberation of movement in his marrow. He'd seen many fractured bones before, seen the strange honeycomb that made up their insides, and he felt like his own bones were full of bees, dipping and whirling and buzzing to get out. His head hurt, he was starving, and the arm around her waist felt welded into place.

"Lenna?" he said, his throat parched, and she stirred against him. He slid from the saddle, barely catching her as she toppled from her perch. At first he thought she'd fainted, her head lolling on her neck, caught against his shoulder as he managed to lift her. She felt heavier than ever she had before, his own exhausted strength struggling to carry her the dozen paces to a low, rocky outcropping. His soldier's brain must have chosen the place without his knowledge, the old instinct to look for shelter having awoken without his bidding. He approved. It would be an easy place to rest, and they both needed it. He laid her down beneath the ledge, running his hand across her wrist to reassure himself, her pulse fluttering like a hatchling's wings against his fingertips. She looked awful, her hair hanging in a rat's nest about her face, the circles under her eyes almost crimson, but her breast was rising and falling, and she squeezed his hand weakly, eyes already closed. Laid out like that in the dry leaves she looked like some kind of enchanted maid, and she was deeply asleep almost before he had a chance to unfasten his cloak and lay it beneath her head.

He was exhausted, too, but there were things to do. He cut pine boughs and stacked them to keep out the wind and rain, though he doubted they'd see any. The sky was a brilliant blue above the treetops. He started clearing the space for a campfire, building the necessary layers of tinder, kindling, and fuel, stopping between each to check in her. After a half hour he felt the tension in his neck go lax to find her eyes looking back at him.

He went to her immediately, fuel logs falling with a clatter that made her wince. Water, and food, that would help, he thought. He grabbed the water skin he'd managed to pack.

"Drink," he said, noting the tremor in her hands when she reached for it. He held it for her, tipping it so she could let it trickle into her parched mouth. She drank greedily, wiping what had sloshed from between her lips from her chin with her hand. He took a long drink himself, realizing that he, too, was parched.

"Where?" She asked weakly.

"Forty miles north, give or take," he replied, his eyes searching her face avidly. He looked for all the things soldiers know to watch for, the blackened eyes, slurred words, the sluggishness. She needed to go back to sleep, they both did. He could feel it creeping through him like a shadow, a great black chasm.

"The road?" She asked, looking around at the clearing.

"Dangerous. Best go through the wild."

"I'm so tired."

"Rest now," he said, smoothing his palm over her hair. She sank back into the leaves and he stretched out beside her, one arm extended above her head as he curled himself around her still in his plate. He fell asleep almost immediately.

He woke in the late afternoon, four or five hours later. The sun was sinking low, just starting to stain the horizon red. She was still asleep, but she looked better already, color back in her cheeks. She'd snuggled into to him in her slumber, her head tucked into his armpit. He ghosted a finger over her cheek before slowly pulling away to tend to the campsite.

He built the fire and asked himself what the fuck he had done. What the actual fuck had he been thinking, throwing her over his shoulder and slinging her across his saddle like some savage. She had fought him, he hadn't expected her to fight him, but after watching his men slaughtered like pigs, he'd had one thought.

 _Fly_.

He couldn't leave her, not to face them on her own, whoever they happened to be, but now he might have made it worse. Might have put her in more danger than that which they'd left.

He mulled over it as he sparked the fire, that he'd swapped one set of dangers for another. Brigands. Starvation. Thirst. Illness. Injury. All better, in his opinion, than what they'd left behind. He'd kill anyone who threatened her, and he knew how to live in the woods. At least there, on the road, he knew there would be nothing standing in his way if she needed defending, not like in King's Landing where there were too many eyes watching, where he was as much a threat to her safety as he was her guardian. He'd get her to White Harbor and she'd be safe with the people who cared for her: her father, her nieces, her brothers, and _him._

He heard her stir and turned to see her approaching the fire. Her face was dark, pinched with strain, her lips thinned.

"You need to rest," she croaked. "I can tend it."

"I'm fine," he replied, and it wasn't a lie. He was exhausted, but something heavy and dark had vanished from his breast. He could keep going as long as he needed to knowing he had his back to King's Landing. "You hungry?"

She shook her head but he grabbed the saddlebags anyway, pulling out the fat parcel he'd stolen from the kitchen. Funny, he didn't really remember doing it, but panicked, fire-mad Sandor had stocked them well with cheese and bread, even a half dozen apples.

"Eat," he said, holding out the cheese. He noted with distaste that his hands were filthy. "You can't travel with an empty stomach."

She took it sullenly and moved away, not speaking and not looking at him. Sandor felt himself shutter up, not understanding. He could not tell what was bothering her, but he wagered disgust and anger were wrapped up in it, and he wondered again if he had done the right thing.

 _You did the only fucking thing that could have been done_ , he screamed internally, but he doubted she would see it that way.

"You're angry with me," he said when it became clear that she would not speak again, making himself chew slowly to give his mind a purpose. It wanted to whirl.

"Yes." Her voice was small and hollow. She did not look at him. He sighed through his nose.

"You're disgusted by me," he said.

"Not exactly." It hit him in the pectoral and lodged there like a poisoned dart, making him reel like an animal in pain, anger and indignation flooding him.

"Are you going to talk, or what?" he demanded.

"I always do the talking, Sandor, perhaps it's your turn. Your turn to tell me what the fuck is going on."

It honestly shocked him to hear the curse fall from her lips. She'd said it before in his hearing, but it had been carefully chosen then, daintily used and humorous, not thrown out coarsely, the depth of her agitation in the brief, fricative syllable.

He chewed on his tongue, trying to find words that would help her, help them.

"I had to leave," he said at last. "I thought you'd understand."

"How can I understand?" she replied. "You explained nothing."

"There was no time," he snapped. "I didn't have fucking time to allow you to give your opinion on every godsdamn detail, and then you risk us both by insisting on the going to the damn Stark girl."

"Sansa is a child-"

"Sansa is not my problem," he roared. "You are. No one else, just you." She shrank back from him, wrapping her arms around her knees. "You're stuck with me now, anyway." He wanted to howl with the hurt, wanted to shake her. _She should be happy._ "Thought you'd like being rescued. Isn't this something like one of your fucking stories?" He gestured at the fire, the overhang with its little lean-to, Stranger gratefully listing in his standing-sleep. He tore off another chunk of bread with his teeth. "I couldn't leave you there."

"Stannis-"

"Stannis fucking Baratheon doesn't give three shits about you, at least not in the middle of a siege. His men would've found you, and you'd have been-" his voice failed him, throat working against him. "You'd have been hurt. I promised you, promised your father. I will let nothing hurt you."

She looked at him, her eyes wide. "I know."

"Then why-"

Her face crumpled and she bent her head over her knees. When he reached out to her she drew away from him half-heartedly, but he didn't let her, pulling her to him until she was sitting in his lap, curled up like a child. She made no sound, but the shaking of her shoulders was unmistakable.

 _Does she not know how fragile she is?_ he wondered, tucking her against him. His plate was filthy, and she was still clad in her lady's gown, the muted green soiled along the hem, bloody arcs across her skirts.

"He was there," she whispered into his neck, arms creeping around his neck to his relief.

"Who was?" he asked, drawing back so he could look down on her.

"Ser Ilyn," she replied. "He was there and she was going to have him murder us."

"I know," he rasped. "You did right. You did what you needed to do, you got back to your room. I should have-"

"They're all dead," she said. "The queen and Tommen, all the ladies and their children."

"Likely."

"And if they're not dead, then they-"

"Lenna," he said softly. "You are doing yourself no good."

"And Sansa," she said, her voice going high pitched and tinny. "What did they do to poor Sansa? What would they have done to me?" She looked so lost. "She's probably dead. She's dead and I'm not."

"Stop it," he said lowly. "Stop it now." She looked at him sharply. "There was nothing you could do to help them, not then, and sure as fuck not now. You are safe, and I will keep you safe. You are going home."

She nodded, her throat working. "I'm sorry," she mumbled. "I'm sorry, Sandor."

He tightened his arms around her and felt a strange loosening, like someone had cut him free of bonds, the ropes slack and falling from him. It was fear, fear that she'd hate him for stealing her, not understand.

"I am, too," he said. "I'm sorry about the Stark girl." He wasn't really, not in the way that she was. He regretted Sansa Stark the same way he regretted the butcher's boy. It wasn't his loss, but he didn't want to be diminished in her eyes, found wanting. "I couldn't have brought you both. Stranger can't carry three."

She nodded, biting on her lip. "I wasted time. I could have gotten us all killed. I nearly did."

"Enough," he said roughly. "That's enough." He punctuated each word with a squeeze and she leaned into him.

"Where will we go?" Her voice was empty, muffled by his neck where she'd pressed her face.

"I told you," he replied. "White Harbor."

"But how?" she asked. "We've no maps, no road-"

 _Thinks we need fucking books_. He cradled her head and drew her face to his, kissing her abruptly, not caring that he smelled and looked awful. He chortled a little into her mouth.

"I don't need maps. Or a road," he replied. "I told you, we'll go through open country. Not hard to find North, not this time of year. We'll make for Maidenpool. Might take a few days, then see about finding a ship to take us the rest of the way."

"How long?"

"A month? Won't be easy."

She nodded firmly, then looked up at him through her lashes. He wanted to drag her against him right then, she looked so lost and vulnerable, so out of her realm of comfort. King's Landing might have been a cage, but for her it had been a comfortable, familiar one. She could name plants and trees and flowers, but she didn't know how to use them. She knew the maps of the realm like the back of her hand, but she had never walked the hills and forests, did know her east from her west. But he did, and she knew it. Lenna Manderly, who found her comfort in knowing, was at a loss and at his mercy. He saw her coming to terms with it play out of her face, her lovely face, long and sharp, and when she looked at him again something in his chest bloomed. The narrow suspicion that had been their earlier, the anger and the disgust, were replaced with that bizarre trust she had placed in him when he first smiled at her.

So that's what he did. He let his lip quirk at her, let the fear and rage of the last months and years go, and he looked down at her and smiled.

She blushed and his pulse quickened. "You look fearsome," she said, her lip twisting. "You don't smell much better."

He laughed at that, standing up and extending a hand to her. "I hate to tell you, Lady Helenna Manderly, but you don't smell like a rose yourself." He retrieved her rucksack and handed it to her, retrieving a lump of lard soap from his own bag. "Here, you go first."

While she presumably bathed in the stream, he set about finding supper. It wasn't hard to pick off a few of the ground birds that had been cooing from the brush with a sling, three fat gray doves. He hadn't hunted like that since his time in the army, before his arrival in King's Landing. He'd learned it as a boy, running through his father's lands with his sling in one hand, his quarry in the other, a dog or two at his heels. It was almost a happy memory, as happy as remembrances of his boyhood got, and he found he hadn't lost his knack for it, much to his pleasure.

He had them already plucked and spitted before she returned from the stream. Her hair was wet and she was still squeezing the water out of it with her old shift. She'd washed it, the stains dim, and her eyes were brighter. But that wasn't what caught his attention and made his throat thicken. The old dress strained over her form, clinging to still-damp skin, and she was nearly spilling from the top of it, her chemise standing in for a towel.

 _Fuck,_ he thought, suddenly aware of how alone they were, how alone they'd be indefinitely. It excited and terrified him in turns, his palms sweating and itching.

It was his turn to blush. "Can you roast them?" he blustered, rising abruptly and striding toward the stream himself. He felt hot, decidedly hot. They were alone. Entirely alone. In the middle of the woods with no one else for miles. His armor was suddenly far too small, and he tore at it, wading into the water as soon as he was free of it. It was blessedly cold and he sat in the middle of the creek and dunked his head under the water, staying below until his lungs burned, throwing his hair back when he finally resurfaced, the water running down his face and through the ravines of the scar.

"Are you trying to drown yourself?"

He jolted and glanced over his shoulder to find her standing on the bank. She held his change of clothes against her chest, the lump of soap dangling from her hand.

"Need these?" she asked, her voice lighter and almost teasing. His cock stiffened despite the icy water. She held out the soap to him and he reached for it, but then she snatched it back with a giggle. He lunged after it with a growl, excitement in his veins. She shrieked and dropped the soap and his clothes with a laugh, darting back through the trees.

"Where are you going?" he called.

"I don't want them to burn," she replied, eyes raking over him when she paused to look back. Trousers and tunic were plastered to his body, and her gaze went to the spot that was most attentive to her antics. She bit her lip and he nearly decided to let the birds blacken, but with a turn of skirts and a flash of bright ankle she left him.

He settled back into his bath and decided she'd pay for it later, when the birds were eaten and the sun gone down, no one in the lonely wood but the two of them and the horse.

A/N: Well, folks, they made it out. No telling what will happen next.

Forgive typos, please. I wrote a lot of this on my phone on a plane or in an airport. I'm bound to have made some. Be kind. Estimating a week before the next chapter. Negotiating a cross-country move. Oof.

Reviews are love. I'm obsessed with them. Take fifteen seconds and leave one. Have a suggestion? Want something to happen? I'm open to ideas and feedback, but I'm not psychic! Let me know what you think!


	40. Chapter 40

Lenna XL

She knew nothing. Less than nothing. For all of her years of study and books and learning, it took all of ten hours for Lenna to realize that, in fact, she knew very little. There was no way that she'd be able to keep herself alive if she didn't have him, not for all of her reading and writing and arguing with Tyrion Lannister. He had sent her to the stream by herself, a lump of tallow soap in her hand that was ten times as coarse as any she had used in her life, her spare clothes bundled against her chest. She had not tested the water first, merely stuck her whole foot in, and she was lucky she was standing on stable ground because the shock of the water's chill was so intense she almost stumbled head first into it, saved only by taking a reeling step back as her flesh flashed frigid and then burned.

If she hadn't been so filthy, she might have marched right back to the camp he'd set without a wash, but she could smell herself and still could feel the scratchy pull of blood on her skin. It wasn't hers, and it disgusted her. It took long moments to acclimate to the water, but she managed it at last, the tallow soap rough on her skin and easily taking off the gore and the grime. When she was finished, she felt pink and fresh, like she'd grown a new skin, and in some sense, she guessed that she had.

The woman that returned to the camp was a humbler one, and became more humble as the minutes creeped by. Once she'd washed herself and returned to the camp to turn the spit, it became clear to her that she had no idea what to do, her fingers burning on the heated stick as she tried to turn it to prevent the birds from charring. Sandor had fled to the creek when she emerged, and she hadn't missed the way his gaze had lingered on her as she walked toward him. She wanted to push him back into the grass and climb astride him, just to see what he would do. She knew what she wanted him to do, had little doubt that he'd do it, too. She giggled to realize that he'd fled to the creek without a change of clothes and turned the birds once more, seizing his clothes and following him into the forest.

She'd found him submerged in the creek with his head fully underwater, watching as he stayed there for a long time, longer than she thought advisable. At last, he flung his head back and shook out his hair, his face clean again. It had almost frightened her to see it blackened with blood and mud and other unmentionable filth. He looked like some kind of monster, perhaps an ogre, the scar shining red beneath the grime, his eyes almost silver in the darkness of his face. Now he was Sandor again, beard scruffy and warm, the curve of his mouth familiar and graceful even from the distance.

"Are you trying to drown yourself?" she called, and his eyes locked on hers, mouth open. "Need these?" She waggled the soap at him and lifted his change of clothes. He stood, taking a step toward her, and she saw the unmistakable sign of his thinking beneath his sodden trousers. She was momentarily distracted seeing him that way, wet and dripping, the trousers and tunic disguising nothing. Her throat became thick and she looked at him through her lashes, feeling twin surges of wickedness and shyness to see the naked want in his face.

She offered him the soap, and he moved to take it. With a smirk, she took a step back and jerked it out of his reach. The half-smile that stretched his face, the mischief in his eye, made her stomach tremble as he lunged for her. She dropped her parcel with a squeal and hightailed it the other direction, telling herself that she needed to tend the birds. Really, she was a little shy about where such playing was heading. It was midday in a wood without a soul for miles.

She made her excuses and fled, smirking to herself as she returned to the doves. She was so distracted, or perhaps just so inexperienced, that her fingers fumbled, the birds tumbling into the campfire. She yelped, leaning forward to try and catch them, reeling back from the heat that licked at her hands, completely unsure of what to do to try and salvage them.

Luckily, Sandor didn't take long in his own bath. He pushed her away as she was reaching toward the birds again, stamping on the edge of her skirt as he did so to snuff out the flame that had caught there without her noticing. She'd stoked a fire before, but there had always been a grate, and Lenna hugged herself as she watched him roll the birds off the campfire with another long stick, tossing them to the grass and saving their supper. Her earlier playfulness was gone, replaced with uncertainty and a fair bit of shame. She was a grown woman, and she couldn't even take care of three doves on a stick, let alone her own hide.

"Sorry," she said miserably.

"'S alright," he replied. "Are you hurt?"

She looked at her reddened fingers. They stung, but they hadn't bubbled into a burn. She shook her head. He let out a sound of relief and her eyes flew to his which were focused intently on her fingers. She head them out to him. "The heat-"

"Don't have to tell me," he smirked, and it was perhaps the first time he'd ever made a joke about his burns. He took her extended hand and bumped it to his mouth in a gesture that was too quick, too casual to be a kiss. It was the same way she might have made Myrcella's fingers feel better after a similar accident, and it made her feel like a child.

She didn't know what to do with her helplessness. It frustrated her already, and she knew she was just beginning to learn the extent of her ignorance. She could quote long passages of verse, but not build a fire. She could recite the lineages of the Targaryen kings but kill a dove. She could read in Myrish, Meereenese, and Braavosi, but she couldn't find north. It embarrassed her, just as her behavior the night before embarrassed her. She had questioned him and nearly cost them the opportunity to escape, and here he was guiding Stranger through underbrush as easily as if her were following a map, building their camp as if it was second-nature.

Perhaps it was, a vestige of the time _before_ , the time that Sandor was so hesitant to talk about, the time before she had met him. He'd been twenty when she'd walked through Cersei Lannister's door in King's Landing for the first time, and it was obvious to her now that he had already lived a lifetime before that initial encounter. She remembered being surprised when she had learned that he was only five years older than she was, always having assumed him to be more seasoned. At the time, she had assumed it was because the burn ravaged so much of his face and the rest of his features were rendered so harsh by the permanent scowl, but now she believed it was because even then he had carried his history around on his back, so different from her own.

The disparity in their origins was not lost on her. When she had come to King's Landing at fifteen, she had been sheltered and beloved of her family. The only daughter of a very wealthy man who doted on her and his lady-wife who expected her to present herself with dignity and circumspection. She'd been a mature and precocious child, but it was a soft kind of wisdom, nothing to his rugged background.

They needn't have been so different. His father was a knight, his brother was a knight, he could have been a knight, too. He grew up on his family's lands, a maester in the household taught him to read and do sums. He hadn't been disadvantaged, just not as wealthy as she was. He'd been on track to following in his father's footsteps when he'd been burned, his brother pressing his face into the brazier. He never spoke of it, but she knew he'd been seven from the one time he had so many years ago. The next part was hazy, but she'd surmised he ran wild after he was recovered enough, finally fleeing when it was but twelve years old to become foot soldier in the Lannister service. By the time she had met him, he'd been a soldier for eight years, almost half of his life, and it was obvious that that existence had lent him a wealth of knowledge that she had previously discounted and on which she now depended.

She catalogued what he'd already done. In the time that she was asleep, and it must have been hours, he had been at work. The site he'd chosen had been transformed in a variety of small ways that would increase their comfort and their chances of surviving the night. The odd outcropping of rock had been turned into a lean-to, brushy branches on either side forming walls that let in the slanting light and sealed in her own heat. She'd woken cozy as a bear, discombobulated and a little stiff, but still rested and warm with his cloak spread over her. Outside the narrow opening, he'd cleared a patch of grass and built a campfire, the construction of which fascinated her, but which she didn't understand. It looked complicated, like a rough croft that had been set alight. Add to this that he'd hunted and killed three fat doves and plucked them, their plump bodies now lying in the grass steaming as he looked at her with his good eyebrow cocked up in amusement and concern.

"You hungry?" he asked, picking up the spit. She nodded with a blush, her mouth watering. She didn't remember the last time she'd eaten. She'd been too nervous before the battle to eat either he breakfast or her lunch, and now she was regretting it. He slid one bird off and passed it to her. It was hot in her hands and she passed it between them to cool it off a bit more. There were bits of grass stuck to it, but she noticed the glint of humor in his eye as he watched her decide what to do with it. She didn't care what he thought, she was ravenous. She took it in both hands and sank her teeth into the breast. She didn't know that she'd ever tasted anything better, the grease running thick down her chin. She swiped it away and licked it from her fingers like ill-bred child.

He smiled and ripped into his own, leaving a neat pile of bones by his boots. He waited for her to finish and offered her the second bird. She shook her head, oddly touched that he would do so, but he was obviously relieved and polished it off more quickly than she thought possible.

"An apple?" she suggested. He drew one out of the saddlebag and handed it to her. An idea came to her, a memory, and she grabbed the spit and forced it through the fruit, holding it over the fire. "We used to do this at home, for Yule," she explained. He nodded, a lopsided smile twisting his mouth.

"Aye, we did, too."

The skin of the apple split and crisped and she blew on it when it was done, the juices bubbling. She held it out to him.

He put his big hand over hers on the spit and took a bite, his eyes not leaving hers.

""S good," he said, taking another bite. Lenna felt strangely hot, her breath shallow. They sat for a while passing it back and forth between them. When it was gone, he threw the core and the chicken bones into the fire and they sat. She was startlingly aware of how alone they were, the woods an empty, vast darkness around them, not a sound beyond the lazy chirping of late summer crickets.

"Where are we going?" she asked, leaning against his arm. It went immediately around her waist and she leaned into his side, his warmth on one side of her, the chill of the evening on the other. It was a delicious contrast.

"White Harbor."

"Why?" She was genuinely curious. It made sense, of course. She had not doubt that they would receive a warm welcome in the New Castle. However, White Castle was a thousand miles north, and the route was riddled with possible snares as Lannister and Stark forces would still be fighting.

"Because it is your home," he said plainly.

"We could go to yours, the Westerlands." As much as she wanted to go home, it made little sense to traipse through a war-zone. There were Lannister forces and Robb Stark between their position and White Harbor even if they did go by ship. He still had a keep and lands in the west. She'd found it on a map, hidden in the rocky foothills south of Casterly Rock.

"I have no home," he replied flatly. "They'll find me in the Westerlands, find you. I'm not exactly someone who can hide. I won't like what they'd do to me, or to you. We cannot go there. Besides, White Harbor is where you should be. I should have left you there, or taken you back long ago."

"We had no idea-" she protested, having thought the same so many times. If only she had stayed after that last fateful visit, if only she had done what he'd wanted her to do and refused to board the ship. As much as she rued it, she was fiercely glad she hadn't. She'd been in love with him then, as she was now, and she wasn't sure she could have borne the separation, even though she could not speak of or acknowledge it at the time. She wasn't sure even now when it was that it had happened, when her feelings of friendship had ripened into something more serious. It had taken her so long long to admit it was love. She wondered how their lives might have been different if she had put her hand over his that night on the ramparts as she had wanted to, if she'd had the courage. She wondered if they would have stayed in the New Castle, together. "We couldn't have known."

"We did," he replied stiffly, his eyes unforgiving. "We did know, and we stupidly thought we could outsmart it. We didn't."

He rose from his spot by the fire and retrieved his sword. He had not put his plate back on, staying in the tunic and trousers. She was glad of it, still dreading his transformation from Sandor to Hound when the plate when on. Now, as he took the sword in his hand it was as if he had taken on an extension of himself, the muscle of his shoulders and arm working beneath the fabric of the tunic, the tendons of his hands tight as he gripped the hilt. She remembered how he had sliced and hacked unseen the night before, and she wondered where the man ended and the weapon began. He looked at the blade for a long time and came back toward her. Something about the grave set of his shoulders made her rise, an unknown tremble spiking through her belly. Trepidation.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"What I should have done long ago," he replied. He laid the blade on the ground before her feet, following it as he went to his knees. She wanted for him to rise desperately, she didn't want him kneeling to her. His hands were limp by his sides as he looked up, and his eyes met hers with stony seriousness. His voice was thick when it was torn from his throat, like it was being hauled from his guts with great effort. "I am your liege man. I will shield your back and keep your counsel and give my life for yours, if need be." He swallowed visibly, tension tightening his cheek as he made himself speak the next. "I swear it by the old gods and the new."

Lenna was flabbergasted. The formality of the words, ancient ones she knew well, spilling from his lips made her feel vaguely faint. _Not the vows you want_ , she thought, but she made herself look back at him. It felt as if the whole forest had gone silent in anticipation. He looked steadily back at her, his nervousness only evident in the tightness around his good eye. He was waiting. Waiting for her to accept him.

She cleared her throat and fought against the rising lump in her throat. She was not going to cry. She drew herself up to her full height, feeling the wind stir her hair as she gathered her own courage.

"And I vow that you shall always have a place at my hearth and meat and mead at my table, and pledge to ask no service of your that might bring you to dishonor," she said, glad that she could remember the proper response at such a moment. It wasn't the oath she wanted from him. He was hers now, truthfully, he'd always been hers, but she was his, too. There was no room in this vow for her to tell him that, for him to do anything but swear loyalty to her. She wished to find a way to show him it was returned in kind, but there was none. "I swear it by the old gods and the new."

He nodded once, acquiescing to the ancient agreement, and when she bid him do so, he stood, his blade in hand, and turned away to put it back in its scabbard. She didn't want to be his lady, not like this, not this formal arrangement of warrior and noble, and Lenna stopped him with a hand on his elbow. He slowly faced her, his expression like granite. She searched his face, raising her other hand to rest on the scars and he turned his cheek into her palm before leaning down to her.

His mouth on hers felt like a bond, a strange and powerful one. Lenna wished for the briefest moment that she was of the North, that her family worshipped the old gods, for certainly such an exchange before them would have been just as irrevocable as a ribbon and words before a Septon, even if nothing had ever been said about love. From a man like him, it was implicit in such a vow as he swore himself to her protection. He'd sworn himself to her before, called to the carpet before a queen and a court. Here, Sandor Clegane had gone to his knees of his own choice and said the words that would weave their fates together in one way though she wanted it to be another.

He pulled away reluctantly, kicking dirt over the coals to cool them.

"You need sleep," he said lowly, brushing a thumb over the purple shadows under her eyes. She smiled and caught his hand, brushing his thumb with her lips. She laid herself down in the leaves, her cloak beneath her, and opened her arms when he came to her and laid down at her side, hands and mouth seeking for hers in the darkness.

Sandor XL

Sworn shield. He wanted more than to be her sworn shield, but for now he'd take it. He didn't know why it hadn't occurred to him before. Probably because he was technically Cersei's sworn shield before, though he had taken no vows. Sandor Clegane was never one for promises, and few had ever been extracted from him. The moment he'd vowed to protect her, however, when she was but nineteen, something in his very makeup had shifted. Now, alone with her in the woods, the only barrier between her and the wild, it made sense to put himself on his knees before her and offer his body up to her service.

It was the only thing he had, his body. His strength and his sinew and his courage. They had failed him in King's Landing, not having a proper application, but here- here, he was quite positive that he could serve her until the last breath left his body or the last drop of blood seeped from his veins. It was the least he could do, even if the whole time all he could think about was black dogs chasing each other across her yellow-cloaked shoulders.

They were bound North. He was bound to think on Wyman Manderly's strange promise of anything, knowing exactly what he'd ask for if the opportunity presented itself. He knew he shouldn't even think it, not even knowing it was what she wanted. She'd told him she wanted that with him, to be his wife and to bear his children. It didn't seem real, but somehow it had seemed possible on his knees there in the dirt in front of her. He had thought of it so often, going to his knees before her, he'd done it soe many times in his mind, that actually doing it felt like he'd been stripped entirely bare, his whole skin flayed as he waited for her to answer him.

She'd hesitated and he felt like he might perish, but when his eyes searched her face desperately he saw that her lack of response was a result of emotion, not reticence, and when she had promised him a place at her hearth, he wanted to shout. He wanted to wrap her up in his arms and crush her to him to hear that response, that guarantee of a future from her. It made him breathless, even if it was as a mercenary, a man-at-arms that would give his life for hers. He couldn't think of a more concrete way to show her how much she meant to him than to put himself between her and any danger, to shield her body with his. He'd been a bodyguard for years, but it never felt so intimate. Perhaps he knew the body he was guarding too well.

Attempts to remain calm, to remain grave, quickly failed when she stopped him as he tried to resheath his sword. A dam broke when her fingers touched his arm. His nerves were already raw, and he tried valiantly to suppress the impulse to drag her against him, the strip the woolen gown from her and lay her down in the grass in what remained of the soft glow of firelight. In an instant, he was already imagining it: the soft glow rippling across her ribs and belly, the night air making her nipples harden as she gasped for him.

"You need sleep," he said instead, his large hand cupping her face, tracing the purple shadows beneath her eyes. She smiled at him, covering his hand with her own, and she led him into the little lean-to he'd made to shelter them, to shelter her. If he'd been on his own, he'd have bedded down right there in the grass by the fireside, but not her. He wanted to make sure she was someplace warm, protected.

She lay back on her bed of leaves and he went to his knees again to stretch out next to her. When she turned to him with her arms open, he felt his resolve crumble. She wrapped herself around him as well as she could. She was so much smaller, even if she was as tall as most men.

In the darkness, it felt like he was learning her anew. He'd been hungry for her since she'd taunted him at the stream, but his earlier playfulness had changed into something much more solemn, almost reverent, his hands roaming over the curves and planes of her body, the hills of her ribs, the valley of her thighs. It was slow, unhurried, so completely at leisure that it made him want to weep. There was no one there to hurry them, no risk of discovery. They were quite alone in these words, save the wild things, and they would stay away from the glow of the fire.

He watched her gleaming in the dim light as she peeled the gown off herself, her fingers sure at the fastenings, no trembling as she undid the ties and shed it like a snakeskin. The light was wan, but it was enough for him to observe her by, and his mouth went dry again at the sight. He didn't know that he'd ever get used to her laying herself bare for him like that, all soft, pale flesh, smiling lips and gentle hands.

He'd told her earlier that he had no home, but when he finally sank into her it felt like she was it. He figured that was true. Wherever she was, that was his home now, whether it was in King's Landing, on that bloody ship, in White Harbor, or here in the wilds. She gave way under him without any resistance, her ankles and heels running up and down his legs as he held himself above her. The ground beneath them was rocky, stones burrowing against his bones, but he didn't care. He only cared about the soft, restrained sounds she was making, the way she was biting her lips to keep from crying out, the heat of her around him as he tried to show her that he meant it, that he was hers in every way he could think of.

Her neck arched, tendons standing out as she neared her peak, and one of his hands made its way between them to help her over the edge, to fling her over the precipice. Her face contorted and she bared her teeth, and he barely managed to pull away to spend himself on her belly in a great, shuddering release, holding himself still above her for a moment as his own spend cooled on her skin and his heart thundered in his chest as his eyes remained rooted to her flushed face and darkened eyes.

He collapsed to one side to avoid crushing her with his weight, and to his gratification she snuggled into him, drawing his cloak over the both of them. He wished they could sleep that way, like naked wildlings deep in the wood, but he knew they'd have to dress. It wouldn't do to be surprised in that vulnerable state, but he wanted to draw it out as long as he could, to feel her against him sleepy and sated.

"What will we do when we reach White Harbor?" she asked, her arm wrapped around his chest. He took a deep breath, focusing on the darkness above them.

"I don't know," he replied honestly. He hadn't gotten that far in his planning, and truthfully, the eventuality terrified him. "Whatever your father wants me to do."

"If he told you to leave?"

"I can't," he said, smirking at the possibility they both knew wouldn't happen. She was using it to flirt with him, and that always thrilled him. "I'm sworn to you."

She took a long breath. "I'd have you swear yourself again. In the Sept."

He thought he'd stopped breathing, eyes unseeing as he stared upwards. "Aye."

 _All you can fucking say is 'aye' and the woman is practically offering herself to you?_

She went quiet after, and he wondered if he'd mucked it all up. He couldn't think that far ahead, couldn't bear the possibility that once he thought it it may not come to pass. He'd had the vision in his eyes that afternoon as he knelt on the ground with his sword at her feet, all of himself on offer. He'd knelt and all he'd thought of was another vow he could make to her, a cloak slung around her shoulders, a ribbon tied around their hands. It occurred to him then that what she had just done was almost as vulnerable as him going to his knees there in the wilderness, not so very different at all. Ladies didn't offer themselves to men, not like that. It was a job for their fathers or their brothers, or it was the man's task to offer himself to _her_ , not the other way around. Lenna Manderly had more or less just proffered herself to him, and all he had said was fucking 'aye.'

"Whatever you want of me," he choked, willing the words. "I'll do whatever you ask."

"Because you are sworn to me?" she asked, her voice flinty. He wished he could see her eyes at the same time he didn't. He feared to find hurt there. He hadn't meant to cause any.

"Because I love you," he replied. "Because I want you."

He didn't recall ever saying it and knowing he had said it. He knew it had poured out of him at other times, times when his brain wasn't getting in the way and it just spilled from his lips like water. But he'd never said it like that, stark and sharp in the air between them. It was easier in the darkness.

"Then it will be so," she said softly.

"Your father-"

"Will be grateful to you, Sandor. He will not deny me. He will not deny us."

He almost smiled, but his face had gone flinty as it often did when he was warding off particular feeling. His heart was beating strongly beneath his breast, beneath her head, and his fingers drawing through her shorn hair, the curls twining around his fingers.

"Then let's get you home as soon as possible," he said, dropping his mouth to the top of her head.

They made good time, travelling overland for six days toward Maidenpool. The closer they got, the more wary Sandor became. Despite picking their way through the forest, he began to spy signs of men earlier than he wished to, once even diverting Lenna's face as they passed the hanged bodies of local farmers dangling from the trees. They slept in one of them's croft that night, though Sandor hoped for her sake she didn't realize why it was abandoned. He grew impatient to make it to the port and board a ship that would take them swiftly away.

Maidenpool came in sight on the seventh day since they ran from King's Landing. The pink walls of the harbor glowed in the afternoon light, and he decided that they shouldn't enter the gates until after nightfall. He was too recognizable should someone look into his hood, but darkness would aid them.

Something wasn't right, and he knew it as soon as he entered the town that evening after sunset. It was swarming with Lannister guards, and it took five minutes within earshot of a tavern to know why.

"...almost beat the King, don't you know, but it was Lord Tyrion that saved the city…"

"...Stannis Baratheon's fleet destroyed, sent him back to Dragonstone with his tail tucked between his legs…"

"...did you hear that awful story about the queen's lady? Betrothed to the _Mountain_ , then carried off by the _Hound,_ poor lady…"

It was one thing to hear news of Stannis Baratheon's defeat. If Joffrey was still the king, that complicated things. To hear that _they_ were being discussed, well, that just fucked everything up.

"We have to leave," he said lowly, just loud enough for Lenna to hear him. There would be no ship to White Harbor. He couldn't risk staying in the city long enough for them to set sail. It would take one person who'd seen him before, or her before, and they'd be thoroughly fucked. She looked up at him in surprise.

"Why?"

There wasn't time to explain. There never was. This time, though, she didn't protest when he growled and mounted Stranger, pulling her up in front of him. It took all of his self-control not to spur the horse into a gallop until after they had passed through the gates and were back in the forests.

Against his better judgement, he returned to the croft where they had spent the previous night. It was late when they arrived, but it was thankfully deserted. No one had been there since they'd left that afternoon, though he hesitated to light a fire in the hearth.

"Why did we have to leave?" she asked, once they were inside and the door was barred, Stranger tethered to a tree outside.

"Didn't you see all the Lannister men?" he asked, pulling off his cloak.

"Surely-" she started, disbelief and some measure of placating in her voice.

"Lenna," he said as patiently as he could, "I'm a hard man to miss. Did you hear what they were saying?" She shook her head. "Stannis didn't win, Lenna. Joffrey is still king of the Seven Kingdoms."

She sat down heavily on the bed where they had lain together the night before, her astride his hips on the straw mattress.

"If Stannis didn't win, then-"

"I'm a traitor, and they're looking for you."

She slowly turned her face to his, fear rearranging her features into the old mask. "Did you hear them say so?"

"Aye," he replied. If it was making the rounds of the alehouses, there would be eyes eager to see him for the coin it could bring him. "Fuck. Lenna, they were saying you were betrothed to my brother."

He could do nothing as she paled, as she took in what such talk meant. It had been announced, the smallfolk even knew, and he hated to think what that meant. If she was valuable to Cersei as he believed she was, he would not put it past the queen to sic his brother on them in an attempt to recover her, using his own depraved hatred of Sandor to fuel his work.

"What do we do?"

He closed his eyes and grunted. "We keep going, but not through Maidenpool. It's too risky to be seen. Story circulating about you, there's bound to be a price on my head. Best head upriver toward Harrenhal. We'll pass north of it."

"But Harrenhal is where your brother is."

As if he hadn't fucking already thought of that. Of course he knew that was where his monstrous brother was.

"Aye, and Tywin Lannister, too," he replied testily. He pinched the bridge of his nose. "It's the only option. We cannot turn back south, they are probably watching the roads there. We cannot find a ship to Essos. We cannot find a ship anywhere."

"Essos? You said-"

"I am your shield," he said violently, slamming his fist down on the little wooden table where he'd laid out the saddlebags. The pain that cracked through his hand made him wince and gasp, but it gave a focus to his rage. "I must keep you safe. I'll do it wherever I can, White Harbor, Essos, Braavos, I don't care. But for now, home is best for you. We'll keep moving. Hard to find us if we move. I just wish we hadn't lost today."

She nodded, starting a bit when he abruptly ripped open the saddlebags. He rifled around for a few moments before he found what he was looking for, drawing it out of his pack and holding it up in a moonbeam. The light played across it like liquid, the edge of the blade winking at him. He held it out to her, offering her the hilt.

"Take it," he said slowly. He'd grabbed it in his hurry to flee in King's Landing without much thought. Now he knew its purpose.

"I don't want it," she said, her voice small and almost childlike. Her eyes were huge and luminous in the moonlight.

He crossed to her and pressed it into her palm, wrapping her fingers around the grip. "Doesn't matter. It's yours now, and you'll learn how to use it."

She flexed her wrist, testing the weight of the dagger in her hand. Her wrist faltered, the delicate tendons strained. When she looked up at him, the steeliness that had been chased away returned. The last few days had felt like a song, a man-at-arms out for a ride with his lady in his lap, the birds singing and the sun shining, and he was a damn fool for thinking it would stay that way. There would be nothing song-like about their flight now, not with Lannister lions on their heels and his brother just two days of riding distant.

A/N: I cannot remember the last time I wrote a chapter this short...forgive me! Hope everyone has had a good week. My continued thanks for all of the wonderful reviews and messages. I love hearing from you all, especially this week. It has been...difficult, and I have looked forward to spending a few minutes here or there with our friends as we speed them North. Just a warning- I am going to start deviating from canon a bit more, especially where the timeline is concerned. People may pop up (or not) and things might happen in shorter or longer intervals than might seem usual. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, the timeline is atrocious and convoluted, and I'm honestly not sure when _anything_ happens. Bear with me! I'm doing the best I can! Oh, and forgive typos! This one was piecemeal and they always pop up when I've been writing over a series of days. About a week before the next installment. Love!


	41. Chapter 41

Lenna XLI

She stood holding the knife like it would bite her, her lip curled in revulsion. She'd never held anything sharper than a table knife, and she did not like the easy way it sat in her hand, the grip warming to her palm. It became comfortable almost immediately, whoever had forged it knowing exactly how to contour it to fit snugly into a hand, to rest and balance even in the most inexperienced grip. Cold it had repulsed her, but now it almost felt like it was supposed to be there, and Lenna hated it.

"What do I do with it?" she asked tensely, watching her knuckles whiten more from agitation than strain. Sandor's face was implacable as he reached out and took it from her again. She released a shaky breath, relief that it was gone, even though she could still feel where it pressed into her hand.

"Nothing tonight," he replied darkly, and she was taken aback to hear anger in his voice and see it in the harsh planes of his face. He practically hummed with frustration and a dark rage, and she watched mesmerized as he spun the blade in his hand with a dexterity that reminded her of what he was and plunged the knife into the table top. The force of his gesture made it reverberate singing as it settled into the wood, swaying until at last it came to a stop. "But he won't have you. I swore to you that I would keep you safe."

She nodded, perplexed, not understanding what exactly the anger was that rose up in him like a wave. It reminded her again of the lone hurricane of her childhood, when she had stood on the ramparts with her father and watched the ocean as it churned, looking almost like it was boiling, the waves so high that she had salt spray in her hair when they went back into the safety of the New Castle. It had scared her. The ocean was an unforgiving and an unpredictable thing, but she was used to it. She respected it. And there it was growing in power and she felt helpless, just as she did in the tide of his unnamed fury.

He crossed the little space between them, and he was relentless. She didn't think he even blinked as he pulled her to him, hands on her waist, on her backside, on her shoulders and neck and breasts through her dress. She had the strange sensation, as she had many times before, that he was mapping her and memorizing her. Just in case. Just in case he never got to again. That terrified her.

It terrified her and it thrilled her. She felt the heat ignite in her belly, the sharp joy in her entrails as his mouth descended on hers, on her neck. She pushed against him without thinking, without care, her hips angling against him in unspoken invitation. Her fingers shook as she struggled with the straps of the plate that still encased him. He ripped at it, barely freeing himself before he pressed the length of his body to hers. Every inch of him was taut, at the ready, full of fury and something else that tasted like desperation when his mouth was on hers.

He pushed her against the doorframe, hands beneath her skirts. She gasped when his fingers parted her. She was almost embarrassed by how slick she already was, but it sharpened the glint in his eyes. Her fingers on the drawstring of his trousers made short work of them, and her eyes widened with surprise and shock when she felt him press into her.

He hooked her leg around his hip and lifted her up with an arm beneath her backside. It made her think back to all those times in the Red Keep's library as he kept her turned away from him, unable to touch him even as he wrought havoc on her. Only a few times had she managed to turn in his lap and run her hands over him, noticing how tightly he held onto the reins of his control, fingers biting into the stone surface of the windowseat, his head thrust harshly back against the casement as he watched her with eyes like furnaces, wresting her hand away from him when she got too close. She'd even had the gall to ask him why he wouldn't let her touch him in the same way, and she had not at all been prepared for his response, her mouth going dry in chastened exhilaration.

"I'd have your maidenhead against this wall," he'd replied. It had shocked her, excited her, and now he had her against the door, and it took all of her strength and determination just to hold on to him as he lost the last vestiges of his control, her own breath coming hard as sounds beyond her control issued from her throat at a disconcerting and exasperating volume. She was vaguely aware that she was cursing, and it seemed to delight him, his eyes never leaving hers, not even as his face went slack and he spent himself with two last, long thrusts, his forehead pressed to hers even as one broad hand cradled her face with a gentleness that was entirely at odds with what they had just done.

He rested for a brief time, the span of a few breaths, pinning her against doorframe with the weight of his body. She tipped her head back as she tried to remember how to breathe, sure that her hair was plastered to her face. A trickle of sweat made its way down her neck and over her collarbones, over the top of her rib cage. He saw it, too, dipping his head to catch it. She groaned.

He released her almost regretfully, slowly easing her down. She felt rumpled and entirely wanton as her skirts fell back into place. He led her back to the mattress on her liquified legs, laying her down and tenderly removing the dress that now stuck to her with her own sweat. He didn't utter a word as he stretched out beside her, regret and apology in his hands and tongue, making his amends until she was hoarse and exhausted from it.

He held her loosely in his arms, staring off into the distance. She watched his face, burrowing into his shoulder, wondering what had come over him. It had never been like that, so fast and stormy. He'd relinquished control before at her urging, but there had been anger in it, and that was not something that had been there before. Desperation. Fear. But never anger.

"Sandor?" she asked, his eyes still distant. She followed his gaze and found it resting on the dagger where he'd plunged it into the table. "Are you alright?"

Gray eyes met hers and she knew that no, he wasn't alright. "I shouldn't have brought you here." His voice was flat, devoid of emotion, but his eyes looked hunted.

She furrowed her brow, raising up on her elbow. "You'd have left me with them?"

He shook his head in frustration, his jaw tight. "No. But if we'd stayed, they might not have made the announcement, might not have told Gregor of Joff's plan. If we'd stayed, we could have ridden it out."

"Or, he could have done exactly as he has done, but we'd both be trapped in King's Landing," she said, trying to be reasonable. She had finally stopped believing that there was any predictability when it came to the Lannisters and their plans. It seemed to her that they used everyone and anyone in any way they liked, with little consideration.

He closed his eyes, breathing in harshly through his nose, wrestling with something he wouldn't disclose to her. "I should have done what the sellsword wanted."

"Sellsword?" she asked, sitting up completely. "Bronn?" His nostrils flared and he wouldn't look at her, but he nodded. "What did Bronn know about it?"

Sandor looked at her, a hint of shame again in his eyes. "He told me to steal you. Before the battle. I should have. I should have done it then. I shouldn't have waited. I've put you in more danger than before, Lenna, I failed."

She smiled sadly at him. "I doesn't matter. And you didn't fail. We're here now. We'll figure it out, won't we?"

This seemed to perturb him greatly. He looked back at the table and he nodded to himself. "Aye. I will get you out. But I won't like it. I won't like showing you how to use that thing. You should never have to touch something like that."

"You do all the time," she tried, but she thought she understood his meaning.

"We are not the same, Lenna," he whispered. "You are made for better-"

"Hush up," she said firmly. "I don't want to hear any of that nonsense, Sandor Clegane. There is none better, not for me."

He grunted and she knew he was arguing with her in his head, but she was grateful that he didn't want to continue to conversation. It settled like a shadow in her lungs, filling her whole chest with darkness as she fell into an uneasy sleep, determined not to cry. Crying would do neither of them any good.

He woke her before dawn by rocking insistently against her backside, his hands running up and down her ribcage and over her breasts as he nipped at her neck and earlobes. It was a dreamy awakening, and she stretched against him as languorously as a cat, not quite smiling, as parts of her that were still a little sore from the night before roused themselves and set to aching for a more pleasant reason.

He was curled around behind her, the arm beneath her coming up and stroking her chest, tracing sides, the other dipping between her thighs, just as he had the previous night with no preamble at all. He had been frantic, and now he moved slow, his breathing harsh in her ear and on the back of her neck as he stirred her awake. There was no anger now, but the way he moved and breathed was sorrowful and muted, subdued even as she responded to him.

"Morning," she said, turning her head and almost surprised when his mouth found hers in lieu of a response. He tasted bittersweet, breathing harshly into her as he lifted her leg slightly beneath the knee before sliding where she most wanted him. She gasped and groaned into his mouth and kissed her harder in response.

"Morning," he chuckled, a dark sound, holding her limbs in place as he began a slow rhythm, his face tucked against hers side by side, the scar pressed cool and rigid against her cheek as she brought her other hand along his beard, digging into his hair as she arched back against him. He was strangely unhurried, the desperation of the night before dissolved in the gray morning light, hovering in that half-place between dawn and day. As soon as it was light enough, they would be running again, and she prayed to the gods to extend the inbetween, to give them just a little more time. She gave herself over to him, sighing into a soft and unexpected peak as his breath came faster against her ear until at last he pushed away, dragging her to his chest as he rolled onto his back, jerking as he finished.

He lay for a long time without looking at her, his thumb running in lazy circles on her upper arm. His features were dark, and she noticed how much more deeply the lines were carved into his forehead, around his mouth. She wanted to smooth them, but didn't know how. She doubted there was any way to erase those crags, especially now.

"What if we just stayed here," she said, curling into him, closing her eyes against the brightening light. "You could wake me up like that every morning."

She was hoping to coax a smile out of him, a playful retort, anything that might dispel the heaviness that had settled upon them the day before. She had had little time to process the news of the previous day, the story he'd told of the people talking about them. She didn't want to think about it. If he was right, and she was sure that he was, there would be men on the lookout for them, ready to take them both to Harrenhal to face the Lannisters, and his brother. To send them to their deaths, separate and alone.

He didn't respond, didn't take her bait. He seldom did even though she wanted him to, and she thought that perhaps, finally, she understood why. It could only lead to disappointment, dreaming like that. They had already been through so much, nothing was a given, and planning had done them no good in the past. She wondered if that was where his reticence was rooted, an aversion to tempting the gods. Instead, he drew the back of one long finger down the length of her jaw, his eyes tracing her face as if he was memorizing it again. She realized she was doing the same, her fingers in his beard as she took in his features, almost relaxed, the new dawn washing kindly over the unscarred half of his face as some of those fissures and ravines softened. She couldn't help but smile, thinking for what could have been the thousandth time that he was handsome in his way. She'd seen it as a girl in spite of the scar, and she saw it clearly now that the scar meant nothing to her. She traced her finger where his other brow should have been, over the drooping of his brow, and his lip quirked infinitesimally, the gray eye again warm.

"We need to get moving," he said, but neither of them stirred for a while, they just lay there looking at each other. The anger had abated, even though she was certain it would return. He wasn't angry at her, that she was sure of, and he leaned into her hand like a dog or a cat might when scratched, nuzzling her hand and pressing a kiss to her palm. Then, he closed his eyes and let out what sounded suspiciously like a sigh before rising and wiping himself off without another word.

She watched as he began the long process of dressing, continuously distracted by the flashes of light against the knife blade that was still lodged in the table. The leaves were fluttering outside the little window, their dipping and dancing casting mottled sunlight across the room. It made the knife wink at her. It reminded her that they had to go, that to stay there would be folly. She forced herself to get up and pull her chemise over her head, to settle the woolen dress and lace the ties. She fumbled briefly, and was sadly satisfied when she felt his fingers tug and tie them for her without her asking, his hand smoothing over the curve of her waist as he silently moved away from her. Again, she wished this could be their every wakening, only without the mantle of worry and danger about their shoulders.

She returned the favor by tightening the straps of his armor as deftly as any squire, and when he rose again he was more the Hound than Sandor, resolutely making the two strides to the table and yanking the dagger from its surface easily. He turned to her with it shining in his hand, his eyes doleful and full of himself instead of the Hound, and he knelt at her feet on the dirt floor.

She refused to cry as he lifted her skirt and slid the blade into its sheath and then into her boot, his hand lingering on her ankle as he did so. He stayed at her feet a moment longer than he had to, and she didn't miss how he wiped his nose on the back of his hand in an attempt to recover himself.

"You'll start learning how to use it today," he said, glancing up. "When we stop to rest." She must have looked miserable because he rose quickly and dropped a hard kiss on her mouth. "I don't like it any more than you do."

She was keenly aware of it from the moment he slid it into place. It was unfamiliar and stiff against the outside of her ankle, digging in uncomfortably as they rode. She was glad he'd brought a sheath with it, glad she at least didn't have to be aware of the cold steel against her skin. The very thought of it made her shudder.

It was a beautiful day, but neither of them noticed it. They rode in silence along the river, headed northwest. They had lost time by going to Maidenpool first, along with the whole of the previous day. She did her best not to think about what that could cost them, what might happen if they ran into a contingent of Lannister soldiers, or worse, his brother's men.

At midday, he stopped as promised. Stranger was grateful for the break, drinking greedily from the riverbank as they quietly shared bread and cheese. They were beginning to run short of it, and she noticed that he took about half of his usual. She followed suit, but he pushed her regular portion into her hand with a look of disapproval. It tasted like sawdust in her mouth.

"Time for your first lesson," he said when she was done, swiping his hands together and getting to his feet. He extended his palm to her, and she took it, standing resolutely.

"Draw it," he said, and for a moment she saw a flash of Sandor as a commander. She bent and awkwardly withdrew it. "Have to do better than that," he said. "I could have killed you a half-dozen times."

He taught her to swipe at her skirt as she crouched, to draw it swiftly and hide it against the folds of her dress. He made her do it two dozen times, her thighs unused to that kind of squatting and rising, shaking and burning much to her chagrin. She felt weak, soft, and not in a good way, cursing her highborn upbringing. It didn't help that every time her fingers closed around the cold metal she wanted to faint.

"Show me how you want to hold it," he said, watching as she extended it.

The weight of the knife in her hand was still unfamiliar, but it nestled into her palm like a friend. Her wrist was not used to holding something so heavy, only accustomed to pens and quills and needles. It was a little thing, a slender dagger with a bit of elegant chasing on the handle, but her tendons quickly strained as she tested it with a slow arc. She grimaced, not liking the feel of it in her palm.

His hand wrapped around hers on the handle and he readjusted her grip. She held it out like it was a snake.

"It's not a sword," he said lowly, a hint of a smile on his scarred mouth. "You keep it close to you."

"I don't want to keep it at all," she retorted.

He humphed, moving behind her. "I don't want you to need it either, Lenna. Here." He stretched his arm along her and brought it in, showing her where to hold the blade. "Keep the edge up, hold it away from you, but not too far. You don't want to lose time or open your arm up to an attacker." His other hand ran up between her shoulder blades and she shivered despite herself. She could hear the smirk in his voice when he spoke again. "Keep your shoulders hunched and your head down. Protect your neck and face at all times. Facial wounds will distract you, but a neck wound would kill."

She shuddered again, but for a different reason. He moved to stand in front of her.

"Block me. Don't let me touch you."

"I don't want to hurt you," she replied, swiping at him when his arm shot out toward her. She went for it with her opposite hand, swatting at him like he was a fly.

"You won't," he chuckled. He was right. She missed him, but still he seemed pleased. "Try again," he said, "but never use your off hand. Only block with the hand that holds the blade."

"Why?"

"Because you'll probably be blocking a knife. Better let metal meet metal than your arm. And if he's unarmed, you can slash him. Now, try it again." She did as she was told. His smile grew, his eyes brighter. "Needs a lot of work, but you'll get it eventually. Half of using that knife is just keeping whoever it is away from you until someone else can help or they get distracted."

She didn't like the way the metal had warmed to her hand, or the way that her wrist had adjusted to the weight. It was strange when she slipped it back into its sheath, returning it to its place in her boot, her hand feeling oddly bereft, like something was missing. She did not like that feeling at all.

Sitting in front of him, she furrowed her brow and wondered if that was how he felt all the time, like a piece of him was missing when he didn't have a sword in hand. It put her in mind of all of the times she had seen him transform himself, going between Sandor and the Hound with the taking off and putting on of his armor. She had spent years believing that they were two separate entities living in the same body, that he was the Hound because he had to be, but now she wasn't so sure.

She knew him best of all people, both sides of him, having spent the first years of their acquaintance solely keeping company with the Hound. It hadn't been until he'd invited her to use his name, the sounds of it gentle and slurring on her tongue, that she had seen more than the barest glimpse of Sandor at a time. He'd appeared at her door the night before he'd given her his name in a mere cloak and tunic, and she had seen a man instead of a man-at-arms, overwhelmed by his size and the strange, uncertain tenderness of his demeanor. The first time she'd truly seen him as a person and not a war machine.

He had laid himself bare for her whether he meant to or not, his breath catching when she bent her head of his hand, his skin warm. It had surprised her, how warm he was. Then there had been the night not so very long ago when she had realized that he would do whatever she asked of him. That was the night she understood, at least in part, though it had taken her years. No questions from him, just action, and he used that great physical strength of his to achieve her wishes, infrequent as she expressed them. He'd carried her letter when she was but a girl, the risk then so unbelievably low in comparison to that which they now faced. He'd kept her company, sneaking into the library, later into her rooms, knowing full well what might happen to him if he was caught. He'd done it for one reason, and one reason only. To make her happy.

It was then that she realized she did not know what made him happy. Being with her, certainly, but that couldn't be the only thing he enjoyed. _Killing_ , he'd told her that years ago and it had turned her stomach. Now it didn't so much as make her turn her head. _Keeping you safe_. That was the crux, wasn't it? His happiness was all tied up in her physical well-being, and his frenzy the night before, his hesitancy to discuss the future, his strange ability to take her love while not quite accepting it, they made sense now.

Sandor Clegane thought of himself as a liability. The dagger that was in her boot was a symbol to him, a sign of his failure. If he'd done his job the way he wanted to, she would never have to hold such a thing, never have to think about using it. He felt, and Lenna was sure of this, that he was simply not enough. He was her sworn shield, though she had refused to let herself think about what that meant, but he knew that shields faltered, shields fell, and if that happened, there would be no one. No one to keep her safe.

She laid her hand over his where it rest on her waist and turned her face into his neck. His head dipped next to hers for a moment, his hair brushing her cheeks, and she resolved not to cry, not unless she had to. She felt helpless. _He's wrong_ , she thought, _he's not the liability, I am_. She was a lady born and bred, she had never dreamed of having to defend herself. If it hadn't been for her, Sandor Clegane would never have fled, he'd have gone on as he'd always done, fighting for the Lannisters. Even if he had run, he'd not have had to worry about keeping her in tow.

She slowed him down. She risked _him_ , not the other way around, but she knew he'd not see it that way, not ever. A decision was made then. She'd not to fight him, not anymore. She wouldn't question him. She'd keep her opinions to herself. After all, they had gotten them into so much trouble already. He wanted to teach her with the knife? She'd learn how to use the knife. He wanted to skirt north of Harrenhal? They would skirt north of Harrenhal. He wanted to flee to Essos? She'd go, without a word or a complaint. Trust. It was the backbone of her feelings for him, and it always had been. She had just been too blind and too arrogant to embrace it. She'd fought him during the Battle of the Blackwater believing herself to know better. She didn't. He'd known it, and now she did. But hadn't she trusted him from the first moment she met him? It puzzled her, that their very foundation was built with trust, and she had pushed it down over and over again in favor of her own brand of logic.

"Sandor," she said, drawing his attention back to her. "I want to tell you something."

"Hm?" he replied absently, lost in his own thoughts.

"I want you to know that I trust you," she said simply. "I have always trusted you, and I always will. Tell me what I need to do, and I'll do it."

He seemed puzzled by her statement, his good brow pulling into the scar as he looked at her askance. She made herself smile, knowing it was a sad attempt, but tension in the lines on his forehead released slightly, and his arm came around her a little more tightly, and she could feel him inhale and then exhale slowly against her, his lips pressing against her head.

Sandor XLI

Trust. He knew what to do with trust as much as he knew what to do with love. She trusted him, but he did not trust himself. He had spent the last months, the last years, wrestling with that very problem. Now, hearing her say it meant more than any declaration of love from her. It was a surrender, one he wasn't sure he deserved. At least he could rest content knowing that he had never broken her trust, had never intentionally let her down, even though he felt like a tremendous failure as he pulled her against him, keenly aware of how much danger he had gotten her into even as he was trying to fucking rescue her.

He didn't fear for himself, but if anything happened to her, gods...

They camped that night in the brush, no fire, just a hunkering down in the grass. He was tempted to stay in his plate, but she'd be warmer if he didn't, more comfortable against him. He lay down next to her on his left side, pulling his cloak over them and tucking her against his front. She felt small, he'd already noticed that her collarbones were sharpening along with her cheeks. He didn't like it, knew there was nothing for it, all he could do was make her take her portion and eat it, then wrap around her in the night. She watched in silence as he laid his sword in the grass beside her. It was more than half her height.

He woke the next morning with her curled into him, an arm twisted around his neck. He lay there for a time, knowing he should get up, but he was transfixed as always by the sight of her asleep beside him. Despite the long road that lay ahead of them, the great threat that hunted them, Sandor was strangely content.

They got an early start, riding silently, and he stopped at midday. They ate quickly, the bread so stale he showed her how to dip it in water to soften it. The cheese was still good at least, and they munched as they sat on the ground, resting. He saw how stiffly she moved, knew that if he ached, she must be in even worse discomfort. There was nothing for it but to keep moving and to pause to stretch.

"Second lesson," he said, rising and offering his hand. To his surprise, she did not scowl, she did not curl her lip, just stood and waited patiently. He had her practice what they'd done the day before, withdrawing her blade from her boot with a flick of her skirts and wrist a dozen times, satisfied with how quickly she was able to do it for now. She thought too much, and it slowed her down.

He withdrew his own dagger, her eyes widening slightly, and he feinted for her to block him.

"Stop thinking so much," he said gently, chucking her under the chin. "You think and you hesitate. You can't hesitate."

"How can I stop thinking?" she asked. He shrugged. He had no idea, it wasn't a problem he had. She was, after all, known for her thinking. All those bloody books and languages. He didn't expect it would be easy for her to turn off. "What do you think about?"

It was a question he didn't know how to answer. It wasn't that he didn't think, he did, but it wasn't in words, it wasn't complicated. It was like seeing a pathway open up in a forest and pointing his feet in that direction.

"Move toward space," he said at last, chewing over the words. "Find a pathway and go there as quickly as you can. If it closes, find another."

She furrowed her brow and nodded, and he smirked when she blocked him a little more easily on the next attack.

"If you need to attack, what will you do?" he asked. It was the aspect of this that bothered him the most. He knew her too well to think she'd be eager to assault someone. She'd more likely hang back and simply try and defend herself, but sometimes the best defense was a well-timed offense. It might mean the difference between her living or dying, or his.

"I don't know," she said plainly. "I've never-"

"You might have to, Lenna. If we were ever in a situation where I needed help, what would you do?" It was his worst fear, that they should be ambushed and he overwhelmed. He knew his abilities, was confident to a point, and he sure as hells didn't fear for himself. If death reached out of him, he'd not flee, but when it came to her, that was different. He was no longer living for himself, and just like at the Blackwater, the possibility of leaving her defenseless made ice flood his entrails.

"Whatever I had to," she stated without pause. He quirked his lip at her, something dark in him warming, the ice thawing just barely. He nodded.

"You're tall," he said. She was a hand taller than most women in King's Landing, just a few inches shy of six feet tall. Not only was she tall, but she was long-limbed, though he'd never thought of her graceful arms and legs in any other context than his lustful thoughts. They were an asset for an entirely different reason now. Add to this that she wasn't waifish, though she had lost more weight in the last week than he liked, and she may have been a good fighter at some point, if she'd been a man. If she'd been someone else entirely. "If you need to attack someone, try to come at them from behind so they won't see you. They won't expect a woman to make the first move, and you'll count on that fact. Hear me?"

She nodded again. He turned his back to her and glanced over his shoulder. "Jump on me."

"What?"

"Try and jump on me." She laid the knife down and took a running leap. "No," he said, easily pushing her back, not able to repress the chuckle. "Knife in hand."

"How?" she demanded. He could read fear in her face as she picked the blade back up and looked at him. She thought she was going to hurt him. He felt a warm surge of affection and forced himself not to laugh.

"Do your best," he replied with a cock of his eyebrow. She took it as a challenge, the lines of her face tensing as she regarded him. He'd heard her say that to Myrcella more times than he could count, and the little grace had always pursed her lips in annoyance. Lenna didn't like it any more than she had. She gritted her teeth and he turned his back on her again. She leaped, awkwardly finding her balance as her off-hand gripped across the expanse of his chest to his opposite shoulder and she hauled herself up. He shook her off like a dog might shake off a tick.

"Again."

He didn't want to tire her out, but he made her try again and again. He lost count of the attempts. He noted that it got easier once she figured out how to wrap her arms and legs around his torso. Though he hated that he was teaching her this at all, it did make him feel oddly jolly, like she was a child playing pony. Granted, she had a knife in her hand that he whetted himself. He knew how sharp it was.

"Good," he said at last, lowering her to her feet. "I'm taller than most anyone you'd have to face, so it's good you can manage on me. Most men you won't have to jump at all, you're taller than many. When you get them in that hold, though, you have to act fast."

"And do what?" she asked, out of breath.

He tilted her face up to his with a finger beneath her chin. "Slit their throats," he said plainly, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. She stilled and her eyes went hard, but she kept her face under control. There was no revulsion there, just acceptance. Trust. He moved behind her again, taking the knife from her this time. He got into position, holding her shoulder with his off hand and wrapping his arm around her neck just as she had done. She shivered against him when he laid the cool flat of the blade against her skin. "Start here, below the ear. You'll have to press hard. Humans are actually rather difficult to kill. There's a big vein here," he said, tapping against her pulse. It fluttered against his finger. "Open it and it'll do most of your work for you, especially if you can't sever the windpipe. You might not be strong enough, but it's best to try. Once the blade is in, shouldn't be too hard."

He came back around her and ignored the way her eyes had darkened and her mouth was parted. _No time for that now_.

"Try," he said, handing the knife back to her and giving her his back again. He heard her footsteps, gratified when she made it onto his back and laid the flat against his neck. When she slid the knife along his throat, the edge caught below his jaw. "Fuck," he laughed, shrugging her off. "Eager?"

He turned, looking down at the blood on his fingertips with pleasure. For the first time, he thought maybe she would be able to do it if she had to.

"Sandor, I'm so sorry," she cried. She dropped the knife like it had burned her, pulling a handkerchief out of her sleeve and blotting at the cut until the drops stopped welling to the surface. She looked like she might cry.

"Enough for now," he said, batting her away. "It's nothing, Lenna. Barely a scratch."

"I hurt you-"

"And I'm glad of it," he said, grabbing her hand that held the handkerchief. "But you can't let yourself be upset if you ever need to do it, understand? Afterward, maybe, but you have to just act. You can't think." He glanced down at her hand, looking at the handkerchief in recognition. She averted her eyes and blushed. "Where did you get that?"

"Shouldn't we go?" she asked, the flush creeping up from her sternum. She tucked the handkerchief back into her sleeve and made her way back to Stranger. She turned her face into his withers and waited. Sandor stalked up behind her slowly.

"Where did you get that, Lenna?" he asked, laying his hands on her shoulders. He thought about the box of trinkets in the saddlebags that she'd taken reverently out of her desk even as he was wildly trying to stuff her rucksack. She'd stood there with it in her hands like some enchanted maid, and he remembered the white blade of pleasure and satisfaction that had lanced his gut when he saw the contents.

"You gave it to me," she replied, taking a step back and bumping into his chest. He thought about the night of the raids, when her own handkerchief had fluttered to the floor from his hauberk, cementing his fate. He felt it now, pressed against the left side of his chest, his plate tight as he tried to remember when he might have given her that piece of linen, unable to call it to mind. She carried it, it must have been significant, yes?

"When?" he breathed

"That night in the crypts."

"White Harbor?" he asked, laying his hand on her waist. She nodded, and he leaned his head against her shoulder. "Why did you keep it?"

"Why do you think?" she replied, turning her head so she could look at him from beneath her lashes. He felt hollow as he stared at her, unable or unwilling to believe that he'd wasted so much fucking time.

He crouched and launched her into the saddle before lifting himself up behind her, his arms coming around her waist in the way to which he'd grown accustomed. His heart was pounding in his chest, and he wondered if she could feel it through the plate. White Harbor. It had been on the way back from that place that he'd allowed himself to admit what it was he felt for Helenna Manderly went past the bound of duty or friendship, that he had fallen into the same trap as the damn knight in her storybook. He had spent that trip in agony, having her to himself on the ship, being included in her family's revelry, their lives, and knowing they would part as soon as he put his plate back on and entered the capital again.

And here was his handkerchief, passed to her in the crypt as he selfishly held her against him under the guise of comforting her, wanting to turn her face to him, to do _something_ , and he'd convinced himself that all she felt for him was friendship, that all she could ever feel for him was that. But she'd kept it, tucking it into her sleeve, against her skin, and he wondered at it at the same time that he hated himself for refusing to see it, for pushing every little indication away with both hands.

It was clear now, clear as the blue sky above them. If she'd kept his handkerchief close to her, then he had heard something in her voice when she sang, she'd been singing for him. He had seen it in her eyes when she looked at him, when she said his name. The myriad times he had forced himself not to kiss her, not to touch her, convinced she wanted mere companionship even as she nestled herself against him in the library, they had all been needlessly frustrating. Then, he hadn't believed her, not really, all those months since she had risen on her toes and slid her lips against his. She had told him she loved him in the Sept of all places, and he had only half taken it to heart, convinced that she thought she loved him, but believing that she really didn't know what it was she felt for him. Pity, affection, even lust, but surely not that.

His arm around her waist tightened and he dropped his mouth to the top of her head, and a dark, fierce feeling spread through his chest. It wasn't hope, but determination. She was his, and no one else was going to have her.

They rode in silence until well after nightfall. There was no shelter that night, no campfire, and when they bedded down in the grass, Sandor lay on his side and looked at her. When she whispered that she loved him he responded in kind, the words inexplicably hard and fiery but slipping out without trouble. He didn't feel tender saying them, it felt like the beginning of a battle-rage, the red and white churning in his belly, frothing in his lungs. Hers was a soft love. It resembled her so closely, lovely and gentle and constant. His looked like him now, no longer timid, but savage and brutal, wrapped around a core of vulnerable gentleness that he would protect at all costs. He reached for her in need, and groaned to feel her softness rise up against his hard angles, her arms wrapping around him as he moved over her in the grass.

The pattern was established over the next several days. He woke her before dawn, often shivering in the dewfall, tossing her onto Stranger's back with a lump of stale bread in her hand. They would ride until midday, stop, and practice with her knife before he would throw her back on the horse and ride until after sunset. It was a grueling pace, but when he reached for her in the starlight, she always welcomed him, and Sandor found respite in her sighs and gasps as he surrounded himself with her.

It was near nightfall nearly a week later when they came upon the others. Sandor had spent much of the day relieved, knowing they had passed close to Harrenhal and were now ranging north, hopefully beyond the easy reach of the Lannisters. Soon they would be in past the Trident, approaching the territories held by the Starks and their bannerman, and he was sure that while he might have a harsh welcome, they would flock to her aid. He would think on what to do about that later, how to get Manderly on his side before they took his head or sent him ransomed south.

He was thinking on it, allowing himself to smile into the crook of her neck, when he spotted the campfire. The clearing was a little ways off, protected by a rocky outcropping, and he barely had time to assess the scene before he heard the crack of branches and three guards stepped into their path, weapons raised.

A man in a cloak stood behind them, lowering the hood as he approached. Sandor reined Stranger back as the man looked up at him. The man had a long, narrow face and eyes like dragonglass, framed by thick dark hair and a bushy, almost unkempt black beard. His eyes flicked to Lenna, then to Sandor, and he fucking grinned.

"Oh," he breathed, his voice a snarl of pleasure and cunning, "the gods have been very good to me."

A/N: This chapter fought me like no other. NO OTHER. But it is done. Our friends are still growing. As always, I appreciate the feedback that you all leave! I love any and all of it, especially those who make comments about Sandor's characterization. He's a weirdo, and I am trying my best to keep him in character even as he develops. It's hard. He's a mess. Hope you all enjoy, even though this feels like such a filler chapter! But those can be fun, too, right?

Looking at about a week for the next installment. Thanks for well wishes about last week- it was a difficult one but through to the other side and looking forward to the next challenge.

Please read and review. Reviews are love, and I have an unhealthy obsession with them.


	42. Chapter 42

Lenna XLII

"Who the fuck are you?" Sandor asked, his voice reverberating in her own chest like a storm. Just from the tone, she knew was disturbed and thrown off-kilter. In itself, that was enough to set her heart clanging against her ribs and her skin to prickle with fear. They'd both missed the signs that surely had indicated that they were not alone in this part of the wood. Now that they were obstructed from leaving, and she immediately noticed that there was no birdsong. One of the first things he'd taught her was to listen for the birds. If they went silent, something wasn't right. She had become accustomed to their din, and they were so loud most of the time that she didn't know how she had missed their absence. Now it was too late, and the silence was deafening.

The man that stood before them on the road was nonchalant, his stance confident and broad, his dark hair swept back from his face to make him appear taller. His black eyes were shining beneath a heavy brow, one side bisected by an old, pale scar. Lenna wasn't sure where she'd seen him before, but he was familiar. Not only did she think she recognized him, but he was fixated on her instead of her protector. The dark eyes were rooted to her face, ignoring Sandor at her back. She felt like his regard was almost a dare, but she could not place him.

"Do you not know me, cousin?" he asked, his arms still outstretched in grandiose fashion. She felt Sandor shift behind her, his hand going to his hilt, ready to draw if necessary. The man's voice was carefully modulated, casual in its inflection, but the flinty way he held her gaze kept her rigid with trepidation.

She looked back at him intently, knowing that she'd seen his face before, many years ago. It was not a kind face, craggy and set into what he must think was an affable expression. It was not an honest one. Setting one's face that way was a skill that she possessed herself, but she hoped she was more successful than this man. She couldn't tell exactly what he was thinking, his face an implacable mask, but she wagered it wasn't particularly good. Not for them, at least.

 _Cousin_. Dark hair and eyes, pale skin, and then she noticed his men. Rather, she noticed _their_ men. The guards that flanked him on either side were wearing the banners of House Bolton, the flayed men on their tabards making her shudder.

"Grag Locke," she breathed.

"I'm surprised, my lady, that you would recognize me. It has been a very long time."

It had been a long time indeed. The last time Lenna had seen Grag Locke had been at her grandmother's nameday celebration before she was sent to King's Landing. He'd been younger, of course, but she would not forget a face like that, especially not one attached to his reputation.

"Over ten years," she replied, her heart thundering in her chest like a flock of birds, trying to keep her voice light. She was thrown off by his appearance, by his knowledge of her, and she floundered. "Where are you going?"

"I could ask you the same thing, dear cousin," he replied, lowering his arms. The guards took a step back. Lenna sagged just a little in relief, just then realizing the thrum of fear at the raised swords and crossbows. "But I am so glad to have found you. Many people have been quite worried on your account."

"Have you been looking for me?" she asked, feeling a fool. She had expected Lannister men to have been after them, but not necessarily her own people. She wondered how and what the Northerners had been told.

"Come down from there," Locke said, "and we'll discuss this properly. Tell your man to watch his manners. He needn't draw that sword. He won't like the result."

Lenna looked up at Sandor over her shoulder. His face was tight, his eyes dark as he followed the movements of the man as he retreated into the clearing where he'd made camp.

"Is he really your cousin?" he asked lowly.

"Yes," she replied.

"Do you trust him?"

She wanted to shake her head, to tell him that she didn't. She remembered now why it was her mother had never liked Grag Locke. He was the younger son of a minor member of the family, a man-at-arms in Oldcastle. As a boy, he'd been sent to the Dreadfort to squire for the Boltons, but he'd never been made a knight. Instead, he'd become a hunter, much to the chagrin of her grandmother. Bred in the Arbor and raised at Highgarden, used to gentler southern ways, Melleah Redwyne had made no secret of her disdain for the Bolton clan. Her daughter Adalyn was no different, and Lenna wondered if distaste for this northern ally was a matriarchal trait. Torture was outlawed in the North, but everyone knew that Roose Bolton had a taste for it, subjecting his perceived enemies to the flaying so proudly displayed on their banners. Even her own father, a Northerner through and through, was no admirer. Their open secret was ignored by the other families, the Boltons having effectively repulsed them all from even thinking about it.

And Grag Locke had been bound up in them, taking to their methods and ways like a fish to water, never looking back. He'd had little to look forward to in life except perhaps becoming a free rider, his father but a minor member of her family, his mother a wealthy merchant's daughter but no highborn. His greatest asset had been his lordly name, and she couldn't begin to imagine how that might rankle. He'd never parlayed it into knighthood, or perhaps he hadn't wanted to after he'd found a niche in the Dreadfort. A hunter of men. Lenna remembered her grandmother's revulsion when he appeared at her nameday celebration, though she masked it with the same geniality she always did. Everyone skirted him at a distance born of twin distaste and tolerance, and even as a child, Lenna had found his hard eyes off-putting.

Despite this, Lenna didn't know what to do. He was her kinsman, and she could only pray that the bond of blood was enough for him to mean them no harm as he said he did.

Instead of answering, she looked up at Sandor in uncertainty. He dipped his head and pulsed his jaw.

"No, I think we'll be on our way," Sandor called at Locke's retreating back. "The lady is safe, as you can see, and I'll deliver her safely home."

Locke paused and turned. "My orders were to bring her to Riverrun if she was found."

"I am taking her to White Harbor," he replied. "Where she belongs."

"I don't think you quite understand," Locke said quietly, walking back toward them. "I am taking Lady Helenna to her family in Riverrun as I was bid. I don't care what you planned. And you have a choice. You either come with us as my guest," he drawled. "Or I can take you as a prisoner."

"Fuck off, you twat," Sandor replied flatly, a frisson of anger lacing the words. Lenna hadn't heard him speak like that before. He went rigid behind her, his arms tightening, seeming to grow. He reined Stranger around.

The six guards that Lenna had originally counted doubled unexpectedly, a dozen men stepping out into the road, the flayed men over their chests.

"Prisoner it is," Locke said with a wide grin, tucking his hands behind his back.

"Do you want to test me?" Sandor asked. "You won't like the result. Your best fighter against me. I win, we leave. You win, you get to have me as a prisoner."

Locke had the audacity to laugh, shaking his head and looking to the ground as if he was dealing with an unruly squire.

"This isn't a negotiation, dog. All I would need to do is tell one of my men to fire and I'd have you skewered with a crossbow bolt faster than you could charge." Lenna must have started in terror, her eyes flying wide, because Locke held up a pale hand as he raised his brow in reassurance. "But, I won't. There's a bounty on your head in Riverrun, Hound, but only if you are brought in alive. I think I'd like to have it. Now," he cocked his head and she heard a crossbow click into firing position, "dismount slowly and let the lady down."

He hesitated behind her, and Lenna knew he was trying to think. Even Sandor couldn't take a dozen men at once, not with crossbows, and she felt his hair brush her face as he leaned toward her.

"I'm going to set you down," he said into her ear. "Do not watch, and do not object to anything they do to me, do you understand?"

She nodded once, and Sandor dismounted, reaching up for her and lowering her to the ground. Despite his request, she watched in mute horror as three of Locke's men set surrounded him. Stranger nipped one of the guards hard, garnering a shout from the lad. She almost smiled with perverse satisfaction.

"You will not harm her," Sandor ground out, glaring at Locke. Her cousin was no match in size, and on the ground she realized he was shorter than she was. He stared Sandor down as if they were equals. The guards took Sandor's sword and dagger, bound his hands in front of him. "You will not touch her."

"Of course not," Locke replied, cocking his head as if this was a foregone conclusion. "Is that what you are worried about, dog? That she'll be molested?" He feigned offense, hand splayed on his chest. "She is a lady and my kinswoman. If you'd come quietly Clegane, I would have spoken for you to my Lord. Now, who's to know what he'll do with you." He extended a hand toward Lenna, a savage smile playing around his moustache. She looked between them, and when Sandor flicked his eyes, she went to Grag Locke and let him take her by the elbow.

Her heart staccatoed against her ribs and she felt sick. Locke had a firm grip on her arm as he led her into the clearing where they had made camp. She saw now that it was outfitted for at least a dozen, dismayed by the Bolton banners that hung from the rudimentary tents, from the horses and the banner-poles. The sight of the bloody men made her flesh crawl.

Her companion must have seen the disquiet on her face. His grip on her elbow gentled and the smile faded. "I can't imagine how you must feel, my lady," Locke said, gesturing to a stump that was serving as a seat. "All alone in the wood with a man like that for weeks on end. Has he harmed you? In anyway?" Lenna shook her head forcefully. His remained hard even as he let his face register relief. "You're used to a fine Keep and a soft bed, not this kind of living. You must be terrified, overwhelmed. You've had quite an ordeal, I imagine."

"Aye," she replied breathily. She would never tell him that the most fearful she had felt was sitting now with him in this camp surrounded by banners emblazoned with bleeding bodies.

Locke settled down across from her. His tone was altogether too solicitous for the situation, like they were taking tea instead of surrounded by wilderness, her protector just bound before her and now out of sight. She was effectively a prisoner, too, and they both knew it. _He's trying too hard_ , she thought, wondering why he bothered.

"How lucky it was that our paths crossed, cousin. Almost as if ordained by the gods." One of the guards brought him a tin plate with some sort of mash on it and a cup. "Are you hungry?"

She shook her head.

"Come, cousin," he said, silently instructing the guard to bring her a plate of food. "I cannot take you back to your brothers all skin and bones."

"My brothers?" she asked, her head shooting up.

"Aye," he replied, his brow furrowing. "At Riverrun. Have you no idea what is going on, my lady?"

Again, she shook her head miserably. Locke spooned up the mash greedily, some sort of concoction of beans and pork from the smell of it, and took a swig from his cup.

"The last I heard was that Robb Stark had called his banners," she said truthfully. They'd been so fixated on Stannis Baratheon that she hadn't payed much attention to what was going on in the North.

"And the fighting has been thick ever since," he smiled, as if this fact cheered him, should cheer her. "Lannister defeat after Lannister defeat. We captured the Kingslayer, you know."

She nodded, a pang of sadness tightening in her chest. "I had heard that as well."

"But he escaped." Her eyes must have widened at this because Locke chuckled. "Never fear, my lady. He's headed back where he belongs."

"King's Landing?"

He looked at her in amused disbelief. "No, my lady, to Riverrun. See?" He gestured behind her with a tip of his cup, and Lenna followed his gaze only to be arrested by a pair of beryl-bright eyes in a filthy face.

"Ser Jaime," she breathed, her brow knotting. He looked steadily back at her, his face nearly black with grime. She could see the tensing of his mouth and temples, the struggle he fought to look back at her. The green eyes were hollow, not so much forlorn as empty, only the color making them shine. He was bound at the ankles, and his arms were arranged in the strangest position. It was then that Lenna realized they were crossed that way because his wrists could not be properly bound. Where his sword-hand had been there was nothing but a dingy knob of old bandages. And around his neck...Lenna could not think about what it was she saw hanging about his neck. She reeled back to Locke with a snarl. "What have you done to him?"

"Unfortunate, that," Locke replied with a wicked glint.

She regarded him flatly. "He needs a maester."

"He needs to learn to shut the fuck up," Locke snarled. "Wouldn't need a maester if he knew when to shut his arrogant yap."

Lenna took a deep breath, trying to suss out who Locke wanted her to be. "I'm sure King Robb will be happy to have delivered back. He is a valuable hostage, I'm sure."

"You know what that's like," Locke replied. "Being used that way."

"What are you talking about?" she replied, furrowing her brow.

"Can't remember how many times Lord Tywin wrote to the King, and to your father, trying to barter for your release. Yours and the Stark girls."

"The girls?" she asked suspiciously.

Locke looked at her as if she was daft. "Lady Sansa and that little one. Can't remember her name."

"Arya," Lenna supplied.

"Aye, that's it," he replied. "Of course, the last raven, that was a surprise."

"Forgive me, cousin," she said, trying not to imbue the word with as much annoyance and distaste as she felt, "but I am quite at a loss."

"They all thought you dead, my lady."

"Dead."

"Aye," he replied. "Your brothers told of it, a sack arriving from King's Landing with nothing but your hair, not even a message."

"There was no message?" she said, furrowing her brow. "None?"

Locke shook his head. "Not that I know of. Your father, he was furious. He'd stayed fairly neutral until that point, sending as little of his garrison as possible. After, he called in his own banners and sent both of your brothers to Riverrun."

Lenna blanched. He'd tried to stay out of it for her, and now he'd sent an army in retaliation over her.

"Then the raven came just after the Blackwater," Locke said, pleased that he had riveted her attention. "Your brothers cried, my lady, to hear that you had been kidnapped during the battle, but for joy, not sorrow."

She felt like crying herself. To think that they all believed her dead, even for an instant, was devastating.

"Granted, we were all stunned to hear that it was the queen's Hound had taken you. Set many tongues to wagging, I'll tell you that. But we'll take you with us now," he replied, a smile like a snake slithering across his face. "Set this whole unpleasant episode behind you. Your father will be so pleased that we have found you."

Episode. As if that one word could sum up a decade of heartache, remedied like a headache with a good night's sleep. Her mind was a morass of questions, none of which she dared give voice to the man sitting before her.

"And Clegane," she said, averting her eyes from Locke's. "What of him?"

Locke shrugged. "Wanted for questioning, that's why King Robb wants him alive. We'd all like to know why the Lannister dog fled North with a Manderly maid, but really, we want to find out what else he knows."

Lenna's chest loosened a little in relief. "I can answer the first," she said. "Not as salacious as you seem to think. He is keeping a vow. If such things matter to you." She regretted the last as soon as it passed her lips, wincing a bit when the hard eyes flashed hot.

"Your mother never liked me either," he said conspiratorially, leaning in so close she could feel his breath. "No skin off my nose if you don't." He leaned away again, tossing back a mouthful of wine. "What the fuck do I care what a stuck-up old maid thinks of me. I'm half convinced you're one of them anyway. No true Northern woman would have stayed in the capital after Ned Stark was killed. But, it matters very little to me. I'll have the price for your return, and his, and that will be plenty for me. Yes, the gods have been very kind to me indeed."

Locke got up then, wandering away from the fire and toward a group of his men, leaving Lenna to sit and contemplate what he'd told her alone. She sat rigid, trying to make herself smaller, too aware of the way the guards were glancing at her, and not liking it, not one bit.

She heard movement behind her and she turned to see what had caused it, worried that it was some wild animal. Instead, she found herself not very far from a third bound figure. The person was enormous, though not as big as Sandor. At first she took her for a man, but the strange delicacy of her cheekbones, the beautiful blue eyes rimmed in pale lashes, those features told a different story.

"My lady," the woman said, her voice lower than Lenna expected. The face that looked back at hers was unlovely but strong, and the eyes were sorrowful and serious. She was dirty and bruised, a large purple scrape up one cheek, obscuring the lines of her face with swelling, but the features were placid. It was an honest face. "I am relieved to see you safe."

"Have we met before?" Lenna asked, thinking that surely she would remember such a person.

The woman shook her head, the pale locks of her hair fluttering against her high forehead. "No," she replied, "but I have heard plenty of talk of you. From your brothers, and Lady Stark. And Lord Renly, once."

"Renly Baratheon," she whispered. "You are Lady Brienne Tarth."

The woman's eyes widened slightly. "Yes, I am. How did you-"

"You have an intriguing reputation," she replied kindly. Others had mocked the news that Renly Baratheon had a woman amongst his Kingsguard. Lenna had found it fascinating. "I was sorry to hear that he was killed."

"Not as sorry as me," Brienne replied, then slammed her jaw shut.

"How are you here, my lady?"

Brienne looked at her with faint derision at the title. "I put myself in service to Catelyn Stark."

"But Ser Jaime," Lenna said, "you have travelled with him, no?"

"Sent to deliver him safe to the capital," she supplied. "To exchange for Lady Starks daughters."

"Then why were you hunted down?"

Brienne closed her eyes. "King Robb did not know his mother had Ser Jaime released. It was done in secret."

Lenna's stomach went cold. "Of course. And they obviously don't believe you."

"They don't care one way or another as long as they get their money." She opened her mouth to speak again, but she clamped her lips back together. "He's coming back, my lady, best we aren't caught talking."

Brienne Tarth turned her head away from her, deep lines etched into her brow. At first, Lenna thought she was feigning sleep, but she followed her gaze and found it resting on Jaime, concern carving a deep depression between her nearly transparent brows. Jaime was looking at the space between his knees, filthy hair swinging limply over his face. The picture of him made her lungs constrict.

Locke came to stand in the circle of the firelight again, his lip twisting in a sinister snarl. "We have cleared a tent for you, my lady. You'll have your own guard. None will molest you, I assure you."

Lenna closed her eyes, never even having considered that as a possibility. "Thank you, cousin, for your kindness."

The smirk grew into a grin. "It isn't a kindness," he replied, "it's merely insurance. I want my finder's fee."

She followed him grimly, keeping her eyes on his back and not on the men who watched her pass, only pausing briefly to look around the campsite one more time, her eyes searching for Sandor and not finding him.

Sandor XLII

They bound his ankles and shoved him down on the other side of Jaime fucking Lannister. He felt like he'd swallowed an ember when he spotted the Kingslayer slumped against the tree, anger puffing up in him hot and vicious. It had taken him a full half a minute to recognize him. He was covered in mud and gods knew what else, hair matted and dull, and he smelled even from a distance. Sandor got a good look at him, and even he felt a slithering of revulsion at the severed hand that hung around his neck, the source of the putrid smell.

"How the fuck am I supposed to sleep with that stench?" Sandor demanded of his guard. He was tired of being pliable, finding it harder than he imagined to let himself be manhandled by weaker men. Even he, however, did not think he could take an entire camp of Bolton men, not by himself.

As soon as he'd seen the banners, he'd known they were in real trouble. It was a stroke of luck, really, that the man in the road had recognized her, was her kinsman. It could have been much worse. He didn't like being hogtied like that, but he was at least confident that she was safe. He'd heard Locke reaming his men and threatening them with torture and death if they so much as looked at her the wrong way. These Northerners took their blood ties seriously, even if it was clear that he and Lenna did not exactly see eye to eye.

"What did you do to her, dog?"

Sandor turned his head and looked dispassionately at Jaime Lannister. The Kingslayer's face was dark, threatening even, and if he'd had a sword hand, Sandor might have feared eventual retaliation. He swallowed his old jealousy where the Lannister was concerned, deciding that it wasn't worth the argument. They were all fucked together, might as well make nice.

"I stole her," he replied simply. "Taking her home."

"Expect me to believe that?" Jaime replied, his familiar disdainful arrogance lacing his voice in a way that made Sandor's fingers itch to deck him. He pulled unsuccessfully on the ropes.

"Believe what you want," he replied, looking him in the eye. "Never been a liar."

"And why would you be taking her home, hm? She was safe in King's Landing, dog. You've dragged her into the wilderness, and now she's at the mercy of this cocksucker."

"You have been gone a long time, Kingslayer," Sandor replied evenly. "You don't know what you're talking about. Not anymore."

"Enlighten me," he retorted with a narrowing of his eyes. He looked at Sandor expectantly, convinced he'd be unimpressed. Sandor grunted.

"The King," he replied, "has betrothed her to my brother." Under other circumstances, Sandor might have enjoyed watching his conceited, handsome face go slack-jawed.

"Cersei wouldn't let that happen, she loves Lenna," Jaime said, clearly fighting a war within himself. "Such a marriage would be a death sentence."

"Not much your sister could do," Sandor replied. "The King is out of control. Not even the queen, or your brother, was successful at controlling him. Not fully."

"What do you mean?"

"He had Sansa Stark beaten in public, and he made me," Sandor choked here, "he made me take Lady Helenna's hair. In front of them all. He threatened to take her head."

"Over what?"

"Nothing," Sandor growled through his teeth, as if there could be an justification for humiliating a lady like that to begin with. "She did nothing, neither of them, except be born Northern. Said he was punishing them for in their brothers' stead."

Jaime closed his eyes, shaking his head. "But why would you steal her, why care?"

Sandor looked back at him flatly, gritting his teeth together so hard he could hear them squeak.

"Good gods," Jaime responded, the green eyes glinting. "Does she know?"

Again, Sandor said nothing, looking down at his hands instead. "We have to figure a way out of this."

"Why?" Jaime asked. "He's taking you to Riverrun. She'll be safe there."

Sandor shook his head violently. "No," he replied. "It isn't far away enough. My brother is at Harrenhal. They advance, she needs to be as far away as possible. She's going to White Harbor."

Jaime looked at him. "How would you get out, then?"

Sandor huffed. "She has a knife. In her boot. They won't think to look there. She can cut us free."

"Us? There are still a dozen of them," Jaime replied. "And I will be of no help in a fight. If you didn't notice." Sandor grunted. "But," he said carefully, "there is another warrior here, bound same as us."

"Who?"

"Brienne of Tarth," he replied. "Lady Stark sent her as my guard. She's a good fighter," Jaime said, and Sandor was fucked if the man didn't look wistful when he said it, a strange smile playing on his lips. "They make us ride together. Let me talk to her tomorrow on the road. We'll figure something out, I promise."

The next morning, Sandor was relieved to see Lenna looked none the worse for her night in a Bolton tent. Locke himself launched her up into Stranger's saddle, and it was strange to see her sitting there. She looked almost little in comparison to the beast, but so much of her smallness came from the desolate stoop of her shoulders, the dark circles under her eyes. They were dry.

They untied his ankles and heaved him to his feet, tying the rope that bound his hands to his horse's saddle. Jaime Lannister and the giantess he assumed was Brienne of Tarth were bound back to back on another mount. The woman was only an inch or so shorter than he was, and almost as broad. He wouldn't have taken her for a woman with the short head and the scowl if he didn't already know. A quick assessment, and he was convinced of what Jaime said. She'd be good in a fight. As they walked, he could hear them talking quietly, but he couldn't overhear what they were saying.

It wasn't the walking he minded, it was being so close to Lenna and unable to even look up at her without garnering suspicion. Instead, he contented himself with periodically brushing his shoulder to her ankle, reassuring himself that she was there.

That night, he and Jaime Lannister were bound together again. He had to listen as Lenna chatted and conversed with the men at the campfire, and he was relieved that she seemingly had determined to warm to them. He couldn't hear what she was saying, but he tilted his head back and listened to the familiar rise and fall of her voice.

"Tomorrow," Jaime said, "you need to find a way to talk to Lenna."

Sandor turned his head to look at Jaime. "I want her to stay out of this as much as possible."

"If she doesn't help, it won't happen," Jaime replied. "Brienne, she thinks she and you could take them out, if Lenna does what we need her to do."

Sandor grumbled. "What is that?"

"Get them all drunk," Jaime replied. "Goad them. They have plenty of ale. She was always a passing fair singer, tell her to get them rowdy. All she has to do is get them all drunk. When they start to drop out, if she can find an excuse to get near you and Brienne, and cut you free, then between the two of you, I'm sure you'll find a way to do what needs to be done."

Sandor grunted. It wasn't a bad plan, and he was a little touchy that he'd not been able to come up with something similar himself. It was better than his plan, which was nothing.

The setup was the same the next morning, and he found himself once again standing at her ankle. He waited until mid-morning to try and talk to her, running his fingers over her ankle, gratified to feel her stiffen with recognition.

"Don't look at me, just listen," he said quietly, keeping his eyes ahead. "Tonight you will get your host and his men drunk. I don't care how you do it, just make sure they keep drinking. Get yourself drunk if you have to, but not too drunk you can't walk straight. You'll need to have some of your wits about you."

"Alright," she said. He let out a sigh of relief that she wasn't going to argue. "Pretend you have to...make water," he felt oddly flustered, unable to find a polite way to say it. "Get to me or the Tarth woman and use your dagger to cut our hands free. Shoulders would be ideal, too, but we'll manage if you can't. You'll need to space it out, over time, maybe even hours. Just wait, we'll make our move when we're ready. But you have to get to both of us."

"Understood," she said.

"No questions?" he asked, eyes darting around nervously to gauge their captors. "No arguments?"

"No," she replied quietly. "I trust you. All of you."

He permitted himself to squeeze her ankle just briefly, hiding the gesture in the turn of his body, wanting so badly to lean his forehead against her calf muscle.

She did a fine job of doing her part. Even he was impressed. That night, she persuaded her hosts to let the beer flow. From his position, Sandor couldn't see a thing. They insisted on keeping him facing out into the woods each night, probably so he couldn't keep and eye on Lenna. But he could hear her, her voice rising in laughter as she goaded her host on. She started it gradually, asking for another drink, her voice growing louder and louder until her laughter pealed through the trees, gay and unfettered.

"She should have been an actress," Jaime said with a faint leer. "Even I believe her. You should see her."

"She's always been an actress," Sandor grumbled back. "Better than you could ever know."

An hour passed, then two, and he heard her loudly proclaim that she needed to relieve herself. He smirked, genuinely amused at her lack of ladylike manners, remembering the once she got so inebriated she let her guard slip in Winterfell. It was the one time he remembered seeing her truly drunk, and he wondered and worried if she actually was that far gone tonight.

She slipped past him, weaving and stumbling on her way to the bushes, and he was thankful that they'd turned him away from the light of camp. It made it much easier for her to sneak up to him and slide her knife between the ropes on his wrist and free him. Jaime leaned into the shadow and she did the same for him.

"Good job," Sandor murmured. She nodded, slipping the dagger back into her boot and returning to the fireside. The men around the campfire cheered when she reemerged, and he heard her call for another drink with a cascade of a giggle.

Then she started to sing. None of the sweet, poetic songs he was used to hearing from her lips, but loud, bawdy songs that he was frankly surprised she knew. The men were making quite a racket, their rough voices joining hers. He lost count of the songs she belted, but he noticed that the longer she sang, the quieter the din became, until it sounded like it was just she and one or two of the other men.

"If you'll excuse me," he heard her say with a hiccup. "I must excuse myself. I'm afraid I don't feel so well."

There was a faint chuckling at that, and she ran into the woods. Sandor waited, listening.

"Hey," one of the guards slurred after a few minutes. "What are you doing there? You've no business-"

He didn't intend for that to be his cue, but it he took it. The lone guard that was still standing was staggering toward her. She was kneeling by the Tarth woman, just pulling up on her bonds when the man seized her around the shoulders. He was so drunk that he fell over, dragging her down with him.

Sandor didn't hesitate, dragging the guard off of her and twisting his neck with a satisfying snap. Lenna looked up at him in a daze.

"Hide," he said quietly, and she nodded, scrambling away.

The sword that he took of the dead Bolton man was cheap, feeling more like a wooden sparring piece in his hand than the real thing. The guards were starting to wake, roused by the noise. One clumsily hurled toward the big woman and she picked him off easily with a broad swipe of another pilfered blade. It was almost too easy, working their way through the sluggish and drunken men that already littered the clearing like rubbish. They fought, but there was no sport in it. Truthfully, he was glad of the light effort, putting the men down as easily as he might put down a dog. The faster they got it over with, the better. He had to give Lannister credit. Getting them drunk had done the trick.

Then he saw her. Locke had her with one arm around her waist, a knife at her throat, dragging her toward his horse. She screamed his name, and it was like the world stopped turning. Even from the distance, he saw the thin trickle of red where Locke's knife caught her below the jaw, the blood spilling down the pale column of her neck.

Sandor kicked the gasping boy off the end of his blade and barrelled across the campsite, tackling Locke as Lenna fell to the ground, staring when her fingertips came away from her throat crimson. He was distracted, and Locke went for him in his breath of hesitation, in the fraction of a minute he took to reassure himself that she was no gravely injured. He managed to wrap his arm around Sandor's back, climbing up him just as he'd taught Lenna to do. The man was stronger than Sandor anticipated, much stronger than a man his size had the right to be, and Sandor was forced to drop his weapon, finding himself fending of the man and his knife. He was straining to shake him off, the man refusing to loosen his hold. He inexplicably became nearly twice as heavy, and Sandor wondered what in the hells was going on when all of a sudden his burden slumped to the ground, nearly knocking him down as his body hit the back of his knees. He turned to find Locke slumped and flailing, wide-eyed as he clawed at his gaping throat.

Then Sandor caught sight of Lenna on her knees on the ground, her knife winking crimson as she fought for breath in great shuddering gasps. He sat up and gathered her to him, expecting her to come undone. Instead, she plunged bloody hands into his hair and crushed herself against him, shaking violently against him even as her mouth found his. She tasted of nothing but desperation and survival.

He pushed her away gently, bracing her wrists with his hands, looking into her pallid face. Her eyes were still wild, her nostrils flaring as she tried to bring herself under control.

"Well done," he said softly, cradling her cheek in one hand and taking the knife from her with the other. She was in shock, her eyes dark and her face devoid of color. "You did well, Lenna."

She nodded once more before collapsing against him, hiding her head in his shoulder as she gasped through rough sobs. He brought his arms up around her, ran a hand over her hair, glancing up to see Jaime Lannister looking back at him with an eyebrow cocked and an expression of complete disbelief on his face as Brienne of Tarth studiously looked anywhere but at the two of them.

"Gods," Jaime breathed, not a trace of humor on his face. "That wasn't exactly what I was expecting."

A/N: Is there such a thing as writer's remorse? I've heard of buyer's remorse, and I felt something very similar reading over the last chapter. Ouf, not my best (am not fishing for compliments). I hope this one read a bit better. Y'all are my testing ground. I'd never written a steamy scene before this fic, and I am still learning how to write fights as well. Having never been in one, it's kind of hard!

Things are starting to deviate, and everything has its purpose (to me). The timeline between now and certain events is fluid, just FYI. There are pieces that I don't want to give up, but which will go a bit differently. Minor changes. I'm not talented enough to change things completely. It is all in service of giving these kids a happy ending. And no, not going to skip to season 8. That's not how plots work. There's plenty of interesting stuff (for me, hopefully for you) in between.

Have I mentioned that I really like reviews? I really like reviews. Thank you, as always, to everyone who leaves them. I truly, truly appreciate them. Consider leaving one, even though I know we all lead super busy lives. Have an idea? Leave a review. Something bother you? Review! Want to see more of something, less of something else? Review.

Another week or so. I turn them out as fast as I am able. Love to you all.


	43. Chapter 43

A/N: Do over? Please forgive me. I should not have published the previous chapter 43. I reread it, and it was convoluted garbage in which absolutely nothing of substance happened. A waste of 7500 words that I posted because I had set a meaningless deadline for myself. No one was behaving the way they should, either. Really, a fireside chat with Brienne of Tarth? Not bloody likely.

So, I deleted it and rewrote it. I know it's not usual, and I hated doing it almost as much as I hated that chapter. I can only excuse myself to say that I was in a rush and hit submit too soon. I'm under a great deal of stress, and while writing is helping me work through it, I'm just not at my best. I didn't want to take a break entirely, though. Can I have a do-over please? Pretty please?

Here is what I hope is better. I'm probably going to be out for a week or two as I complete a 1000 mile move. Plenty of time to spend on the drive plotting, right?

Thank you all for your continued support. I'm going to do better, I promise. I want to get this thing finished, but I also want to do it well.

Lenna XLIII

There were no words for the mixture of terror, relief, and despair that was running through her limbs, pumping through her with the erratic beat of her heart. She couldn't breathe, she couldn't think, all she could do was look at her bloodied palms in horror as her mouth worked wordlessly. Then Sandor was next to her, pulling her away from the body that slumped on the ground, its limbs a jumble of distorted angles. She looked into his face, gray eyes holding hers wide with shock and relief. She flung herself at him, arms around his neck, blindly pressing her mouth to his, desperate for assurance that they were both alive, both themselves. She felt as if she had lost herself.

She didn't know how long she clung to him like that, her mind swirling and dark as she squeezed her eyes shut and burrowed her face into his neck, inhaling the familiar scent of him. Gradually, bits and pieces of her surroundings threaded their way through the convoluted mess: the blood still warm on her hands, Sandor's arms locked tight around her, the quivering in her legs and arms and belly that would not calm, making her feel as if her body no longer belonged to her. The blood was sticky, beginning to dry in the spaces between her fingers, under her nails. Her legs shook and she sagged into his chest, the uncontrollable tremors making her teeth chatter as if she were in the midst of a blizzard. Still, she clung to him. Her throat was clogged, she was choking, and she was only vaguely aware that she was airlessly sobbing

"You did well," Sandor murmured, pulling away from her slowly. He drew back like she might collapse, one arm still holding her upright. It was a good thing he did. She immediately swayed against him, dazed and petrified. Then, his hand was on her cheek, gentle on her face as the other drew the knife out of her grip. She had no idea she was still clutching it, her fingers curled so tightly that her whitened knuckles shone through the gore like bone. She looked at it as if it were a snake, the blade winking red in the firelight. "You did well, Lenna."

The quiet was suddenly deafening, her ears echoing with the familiar, soothing sound of crickets, the crackling fire, and the breathing of the man who still held her face in his hands, a worried expression in his unwavering eyes. She swallowed and raised a hand to cover his where it rested against her cheek and he let out a gruff sound of relief, pressing his forehead to hers in the briefest gesture of comfort.

"Well," a voice said, and she remembered that they were not alone. Jaime Lannister stood a little ways off, openly staring at Lenna as she clung to Sandor, his face thunderstruck. His eyes were bright in his filthy face, narrowed with surprised recognition, both surprised and dismayed. "That wasn't exactly what I was expecting."

Though she no longer felt as if the ground was disintegrating beneath her feet, the calm fled again, and she crumbled into Sandor's arms as she burst into tears. She poured great hiccuping sobs into his chest until the upset was too great and she heaved the mostly liquid contents of her stomach onto the ground beside them, the beer and bile bitter and burning as she choked. It only made her cry harder, and she wiped her face with the back of her sleeve, humiliation crowning the despair and horror. Sandor pressed her face into his shoulder, his hand on the back of her head, mouth pressing against her hair.

"You're alright," he murmured, setting his mouth by her ear, fingers cradling her skull as if he was afraid she could break or fly apart. She was vaguely aware that he was rocking her, just as she had done him the night at Castle Darry, only then the blood was on his hands instead of hers. "You're alright now. It's over."

It took her another quarter of an hour to come back to herself, and when she quieted again, she pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes and looked around at the campsite. It was eerily still, the four of them not moving, standing or kneeling like statues among the dead. The fire still roared merrily, but bodies were heaped around it haphazardly. Her stomach clenched in nausea and she sprang back on her haunches to realize she was still kneeling next to Grag Locke, his dark eyes open and staring at nothing, the blood at his throat beginning to congeal to a dark crimson.

"He was my kinsman," she whispered, her horror growing like a thunderhead. It wasn't done, murder of kin was a black mark, especially in the North. She gasped, her voice rising in panic. "I killed my kinsman."

Sandor shushed her, rising on his knees to look her in the face. "He was going to take you," Sandor growled, seizing her shoulders. "He was trying to kill me. You did the only thing you could. And fuck it all, but I'm proud. I'm so proud that you killed the cunt." She didn't doubt his honestly, a feral flash of his teeth as he gritted them together, eyes aglow. He might be proud, but she had never felt more lost.

She wondered how he could love it, killing. She felt as if the sun would never rise again, that there would be nothing beautiful or good or right until her last breath. She had taken someone else's life, had stolen the light out of his eyes, his blood spilling across her hands. He wasn't a good man, quite the opposite, but she wasn't one of the gods. It wasn't her place to decide if he kept breathing or not, and she had the odd notion that the blood would never wash off, that she would be tainted by it for the rest of her days.

In spite of this, another small voice said he was right. If she hadn't killed Grag Locke, it could be Sandor's body lying there with his lifeblood seeping into the dirt, his gray eyes lusterless and dim. But she had never hurt someone that way before, certainly not killed anyone, and it made her feel like something in her very makeup had changed, shifted. She felt her chin begin to tremble again, looking around uncertainly, trying to determine if this was just some horrible dream, and fervently praying that she would wake from it soon.

"It took courage, my lady," Brienne of Tarth said. Lenna's eyes met hers, immediately arrested by the kindness there. The entreaty for forgiveness. "You saved Clegane's life."

The gentleness in her intensely blue eyes was beautifully at odds with the rest of her. Brienne of Tarth was an unlovely person, but she shone there by the fire, her expression serene even as she held her bloodied sword at her side. She was somber and strong, and Lenna was grateful to her, not just for fighting for them, but for the tenderness with which she spoke. It made her wonder what the first time had been like for the lady-knight, her first kill, and her demeanor made Lenna suspect that she had a very different set of emotions around killing her opponents than Sandor did.

 _There is no joy in this._

She shook her head to chase the thoughts, too aware that three sets of very concerned eyes were resting on her. There was nothing for it now, and no use thinking on it more. She felt like a shadow, her head still a muddle but her heartbeat slowing. The bodies of the Bolton men lay in heaps on the ground, no more distinguishable than piles of rags in the shadows. They didn't even look like people anymore.

Sandor's hands flexed on her shoulders, and when she looked at him, she read the question in his eyes. She pursed her lips and took a deep breath.

"What do we do now?" she asked. He wrapped his arm around her waist, still holding her against his side as though afraid her knees might buckle again.

One of the guards stirred then, gravely wounded but not quite dead. Sandor closed his eyes tight, looking to Brienne when he opened them.

"Should I do it, or will you?" he asked quietly. Lenna shuddered, turning her face once more to his shoulder. She couldn't bear it.

"I will," Brienne said, her brow a map of concern. She swallowed and looked at Lenna. "But take her away, please. She doesn't want to see it."

Sandor drew Lenna to her feet and across the clearing toward Jaime. The Kingslayer was watching Brienne with a strange openness that Lenna didn't understand. She had her own back turned, only hearing the squelch of the boy's body as Brienne's blade drove home, cleaving his heart and putting the young man out of his misery.

Strangely, the sound did not make her want to vomit again as she thought it would. She didn't know that she liked how unmoved she was by it.

"Are you well?" Jaime asked, and Lenna looked at him hesitantly. Jaime glowered darkly at Sandor, eyes alight with an unnamed anger. Sandor looked back at him impassively, no hint of rancor or annoyance in his own face. He simply looked tired, maybe even disappointed, and proceeded to ignore Jaime entirely. He offered her a water skin, tipping it out so she could attempt to rinse the worst of the blood from her hands. It still caught in the borders of her nails, a dark outline that would remind her tomorrow that it had been real. She felt a streak of tightness across her cheek and rubbed the dried blood from there as well, wondering if she looked as bad as Jaime Lannister. He was filthy, his hair matted and filled with dirt, his handsome face almost black with grime, but the beryl-green eyes were the same, still intent on Sandor as he gently tended to her, wiping her hands off with one of the Bolton banners, the flayed man absorbing her cousin's blood.

Her head buzzed like it was full of bees, and she let Sandor help her sit next to the fire. He ghosted his hand over her head, calloused fingers catching the short curls around her face as she stared into the flame, mesmerized by their dance. Sandor left her without a word to join Brienne in dragging the bodies in the woods. Jaime sat next to her with a wry twist of his lips that didn't brighten his eyes.

"I'm not much help, I'm afraid," he said, looking down at his stump. He was haggard, and Lenna caught the stench of his arm. He needed a maester.

The last thing she wanted to do was to talk. She bit down on her tongue to quell the thorny reply, instead taking a deep breath.

"What happened?" she asked flatly.

"That man," he ground out. He cradled his arm protectively against his chest, his face dark and bitter.

She looked at her fallen kinsman. His black eyes were still open, dull and unseeing as they reflected the stars like the sea on a moonless night.

"Are you sure you're alright?" She nodded, fully aware of the genuine concern in his voice. She still could not look at him. "Never thought I'd witness a fierce Lenna Manderly. Your father and brothers were good fighters, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised."

"Please," she said harshly. "Please, I don't want to talk about it. Not now. Perhaps not ever."

"Forgive me," he replied, his tone flat and empty, hollow like a well, the apology dropping like stones. "I am glad you are safe."

"Same," she managed. "I am happy our paths crossed yours. I never thought-"

"Me either," he smiled. "Imagine the odds. Though, I never thought I'd be a captive either. Or gone for the better part of a year."

"We all thought you'd be back straight away," Lenna said softly, remembering Cersei's despair, the way that she had buried her face in Lenna's neck and cried, her cool, queenly composure destroyed by the news of Jaime's capture. "No one ever dreamed-"

He shook his head, looking older than he ever had before. His handsome features disguised his age, but Jaime Lannister was not a young man, well into his middle years. Sitting there with the dying fire playing over his stained face, he looked almost wizened, and so, so tired.

When his gaze flicked back hers, there was desperation in their expression, tender concern that made her want to weep. "How was she?"

"The past year has been very difficult for her. Since you were captured."

He nodded, swallowing hard, a look of intense guilt hovering on his features. "And the children?"

Unexpected pity erupted in her chest. While she found the notion of incest repugnant, against nature, she had never thought of how it must affect Jaime, affect his sister. To be saddled with such a curse. It must bring continuous agony, the likes of which she could not comprehend.

"Myrcella is safe in Dorne," she relayed quietly, kindly, noting the way his jaw tensed at that news. It helped her to think of her former charge, the girl's bright hair and dear face rising in her mind. She missed her with the fierceness that made her happy to know she was so far away, free of danger, free of _them_. "She's to marry Prince Tristayne. I must assume that both Joffrey and Tommen are well. I have not heard otherwise, though I had feared-" she trailed off, worried that she had said too much, not knowing if she should go down that path.

"What? What did you fear?" he demanded, his voice clipped and eyes aflame.

"The queen was rather erratic the night we left King's Landing," she supplied, wondering how to phrase what she'd witnessed, wondering if she should tell him about the nightshade, about the specter of Ilyn Payne. "I feared for them. All of us, really."

"But Joff won," he said forcefully, trying to convince himself of the truth. She wondered if it was guilt that made his eyes hard, feeling that it should have been him on the ramparts of King's Landing as Stannis Baratheon laid siege against the capital. Instead, he'd been languishing in some Northern cell, no help at all to his family.

"Tyrion won," Lenna corrected him, not just a little pleased at the flash of shock on his face. Joff had come inside the holdfast before the final victory. It had been Tyrion's triumph, and Tywin's, not the king's. "I do not know the details, ser, but your father and brother managed to fend of Stannis Baratheon until help arrived. The wildfire helped."

"Wildfire?" he asked, eyes narrowed. She nodded. He closed his eyes and looked away. "Where did he get it?"

"Caches under the city," she replied. "He found some old map."

"No doubt leftover from Aerys' madness," he replied, more to himself than to her. He looked at Lenna again seriously. "I am glad you are safe, Lenna. You have had quite an ordeal."

She smiled tightly, the familiar sting of tears against the back of her eyelids. He wasn't just speaking of the battle, her flight North. Jaime Lannister had always offered her some strange sympathy, even though Lenna didn't believe he was entirely capable of more than weak pity. So it surprised her when Jaime reached out with his remaining hand and laid his fingers against her wrist, barely touching her but still trying to offer comfort. She grasped his hand fully in her own, pressing it, hating how easily she forgave them.

"I am so glad to see you, too," she said, hot tears leaking out of her eyes. "I have prayed you were safe, that you'd return."

Jaime cocked her head at her. "I'm sure I never deserved your prayers, Lenna," he murmured, his voice almost as rough as Sandor's with some nameless feeling.

She smiled sadly. Guilt rose up to grasp at her tongue. "You have been good to me-"

"Stop," he said forcefully, his voice low but urgent. "No. We have not been good to you, Lenna. We told ourselves we were, I heard Cersei say it, Father say it, more times than I can count. You would sit with us in the evenings, do you remember?" She nodded. "And we consider you family, but that's a curse where we're concerned, isn't it? If we had really cared about you, you wouldn't be sitting in this damn wild having fended off an armed attacker. You wouldn't be running from the Mountain, you'd be married to a lord of your choosing and have a family of your own. If we had been good to you, we would have let you go long ago. Do not bother to placate me." He pressed his lips together tightly. "We are selfish and arrogant and, by the gods, we are starting to pay for it."

Lenna didn't reply, but she sat up straight, willing her face into the mask of stone she had mastered because of them.

A muscle in his jaw twitched and he looked pained. "Lenna," he said carefully. "You and the Hound- he is not a good man, Lenna," he said at last. "Perhaps you've developed some misplaced sense of obligation to him, for trying to take you home, but you should not feel it necessary to...to…"

"I do not feel obligated to him. I love him."

"Lenna-"

"No," she said woodenly. "Don't try and tell me I don't know my own mind. I am not ashamed of what it is I feel. I have hidden it far too long to care what you think of it now."

"This started...before?" His beautiful features were openly shocked.

"Aye," she replied. "Years ago."

"Years," he said dumbly, pulling back slightly to look at her.

"Aye," she repeated. "Almost from the time I arrived in King's Landing, certainly once I became Myrcella's tutor," she said, wondering why she was bothering to explain herself. "And I disagree with you entirely, Ser Jaime. I do not know a better man than Sandor Clegane."

"But, Lenna, he's the _Hound_." His eyes were bright, incredulity turning his face rocky.

"You spoke just now about all the ways your family has wronged me," she started quietly, wanting him to understand how they had misjudged Sandor, discounted him. "You more or less said you were sorry for it. I will not gainsay you or deny what you've all done. I was in King's Landing for ten years, ten long, miserable years, and the only person who tried to care for me, to help me, with no expectations for himself, was Sandor Clegane."

"How?" Jaime breathed, as if afraid of the answer.

Lenna pressed her lips together and shook her head. "I don't think you'd understand even if I told you everything. All you need to know is this: he's my sworn shield, Ser Jaime. Of his own volition, knowing full well what that would mean if we were caught." If they were caught by Lannister forces, it meant his head. If caught by Starks, it could mean anything.

Jaime swallowed thickly. "And he...cares for you." Bitter amusement almost choked a bark of laughter from her. He could not bring himself to say the word 'love'.

"Aye," she replied. "He would die for me."

"So would I," Jaime protested hotly. "So would Tyrion." Lenna cocked her head at him.

"You believe that you would," she replied gravely. "And I am grateful for the intent, truly I am. But he has risked himself for me, more frequently than I'd like."

Jaime lifted his hand from hers and touched one of the curls that surrounded her face. "Joffrey is mad."

"Aye," she answered simply. "Mad or simply cruel, who is to say? It doesn't matter, the outcome is the same."

"He betrothed you to the Mountain," Jaime said in disbelief, his face scrunching up. Lenna looked at him in question. "Clegane told me."

She colored and looked at the fire. "So, you've already interrogated him?"

Jaime nodded. "What would you do, Lenna, if you were me?"

It wasn't a question she wanted to answer. She knew that Jaime would never turn on Cersei, would crawl back to her even if they took his legs, too. He was bound for King's Landing, she only hoped he'd be able to free Sansa in the process.

"It doesn't matter what I would do. You're going to go back to the capital and helm your nephew's armies. Then, we shall be on opposite sides of the battlefield. And that pains me, Ser Jaime, more than I can say. I believe you have goodness in you. All of you do, though you try to kill it, like kindness is some kind of weakness. Even your father has a measure of it."

"Father," he said flatly. "He wanted you as Lady of Casterly Rock. Asked me to renounce my vows. I refused," he choked, not looking at her. "Gods, I should have done it. You would be safe there, far away from here, from all of it. I would have done it had I known."

"Again, you believe you would. But you didn't." Pain was written in every line of his whole body, his chest rising with a sharp breath that caught in his throat, reflected in the way he clenched his eyes tightly. Lenna touched his shoulder and he winced. "I do not blame you. I am not worth such trouble to begin with." He made a noise of protest, but she silenced him with a glance. "I know you care for me in your way, but you didn't want me for a wife."

Jaime looked at the ground, his expression stormy. His nostrils flared with strain, and on another occasion, Lenna might wonder what was troubling him. She found that right now, she simply didn't care.

"So you will go with him. Go back to your father."

"Aye, if that is what he thinks we should do," she replied. "Wherever he goes, I will follow."

Jaime's head came up and she wondered if the flames in his eyes were reflections of the fire or conjured by his rage.

"What is he to gain from all of this? He's a dog," he said abruptly, "he's a bodyguard, a sellsword, call him whatever you want. He's only ever been good at killing, and he's not a knight. He's not rich and not poor, he's not low-born, but he's not very high-born either. His brother is a monster, but he looks like one." He paused, conflict evident in his face. "What does he want?"

"Me," she said simply. "My safety. Selfish and selfless. More than I deserve." Lenna took his hand in hers again, pressing the filthy knuckles to her lips. "Will you tell her when you return? About him and me?"

Lenna had carried the fear around her in the time since they'd fled. She had no idea how Cersei might react to hearing that he had returned her to her family without any demands, without any motive beyond preserving her skin. Cersei was blind, but she wasn't stupid. She'd figure them out eventually.

Jaime shook his head, and squinted. "You know, I don't think that I will. I don't think that I will tell her that I saw you at all. It is the least I could do to begin to repay-"

"Ser Jaime," she said softly, forcing herself to put her other hand atop his. "I forgive you. I do." Little did he know that such a gesture was for herself alone. If she didn't, she had a lifetime of bitterness to look forward to, and a decade of loneliness and anxiety compelled her to repudiate it, to relinquish their hold over her.

"A Lannister always pays his debts," Jaime answered without a trace of humor. "And I suspect I will. In some fashion or another."

There was no possible way for him, any of them, to make right what they had done to her, to countless others, Sansa Stark and Sandor Clegane included. It was something of a miracle that he acknowledged any wrongdoing on their part at all. She wondered what all had transpired to turn Jaime Lannister into a thinker, to give him a small gift of self-awareness. He was still so much himself, and she wondered if it was but a brief, temporary shift, one that would vanish when he returned into their nest again.

Strange, with these Lannisters, the best you could hope for was a pure intent. The desolation in his eyes and the tremor in his remaining hand assured Lenna of his sincerity. Jaime Lannister believed that he was going to make amends, that he was going to discharge the debt he thought he owed her. If all he ever did was keep his silence, Lenna would be more than satisfied. That, and to never be harried by them again. They would part in friendship, she decided, and hope that their paths, should they cross again, would never warrant more than courtesy. She squeezed his hand where it lay between hers and they fell back into silence, hearts troubled and darkened.

Sandor and Brienne of Tarth joined them once the last body had been dragged off and concealed. Lenna saw how Sandor's gaze immediately noted how Jaime Lannister was clutching her hand in his. She drew her own away, moving over to make room for Sandor on the log. He sat down haggardly, resting his elbows on his knees.

"What will you do now?" Brienne asked, crouching low by the dying fire. She was addressing Sandor with a look on her face that Lenna could only describe as respect. She'd heard their voices as they went about their work, but did not know what they had said to each other.

"Continue to White Harbor," Sandor replied. "I'm still taking her home."

"By which road?" Brienne asked. "There is heavy fighting around the Trident. Your brother's forces are in that area."

"Is there an alternative?" Lenna asked. Again, she was reminded of how little she knew. She might be able to conjure the map in her mind, but she knew nothing about the dangers and obstacles Sandor and Brienne understood, the symbols and lines meaning much more to them than they did to her.

"Go to Riverrun, turn North there toward the Twins," Brienne said. Her brow was troubled, and Lenna could guess what she was thinking. To head back toward the Trident was to walk into danger, but there was no guarantee of a welcome at Riverrun, not for both of them.

Sandor squinted into the trees, leaning forward with his arms on his knees. "Perhaps," he allowed. "I'll decide before the morning."

Sandor hustled her into one of the tents to sleep, though she didn't want to, not by herself. She hated to admit it, but she was scared, just as a child might be afraid to sleep by herself in the dark. It took many reassurances on his part that he and Brienne would keep watch to convince her to go, and Jaime bedded down beside the fire. He looked wretched, his face gaunt from fatigue, wincing when he accidentally moved his handless arm.

In the morning, they took what they wanted from the Bolton camp. Lenna had a bedroll for the first time, but she chose not to take her own mount, claiming she didn't want the horse to be identified in Stark territory. It was a paltry reason. Really, she didn't want to feel on her own. Sandor didn't object, and his eyes spoke his pleasure even as Jaime tried to convince her. He was halfway through his argument when Sandor slapped the horses all on their hindquarters, scattering them into the trees.

Riding away from the camp was the oddest experience. They left it as it was, not even bothering to scatter the ashes. Brienne and Sandor located their weapons, and they left the way they had come, heading back toward the Kingsroad and the Trident.

"How far to home?" Lenna asked, tilting her head back to look at Sandor.

"Four or five weeks, give or take," he supplied. "Longer than I like."

"You're at least in Stark territory now," Brienne pointed out.

"Might be Stark territory, Tarth, but I am the Lannister dog," he ground out, voicing the concern that had been bubbling in her breast since Brienne had made the suggestion the night before.

"Not anymore," Lenna said quietly, her hands curling into fists where they rested against her thighs. "You are nobody's dog anymore."

He pressed his mouth against the top of her head without a care that Brienne was riding beside them. When she glanced at the lady-knight, there was a strange kind of longing on her face, quickly hidden by the sad half-smile that Lenna already recognized as a hallmark of her expression.

"Where will you go, then?" Brienne asked. They were all ready to go. Whether they rode together or parted ways depended on Sandor's next answer.

"Riverrun," he ground out. "I don't want to run into my brother. We'll take our chances on the Starks."

Sandor XLIII

He hadn't thought of it that way, not until Lenna had said it. He was nobody's dog anymore. Jaime Lannister had looked at him seriously when she'd said it, his eyes exhausted, but Sandor thought he detected the slightest trace of envy.

He didn't really think he'd ever be truly free of the Lannisters, not entirely. His association with them was too long, too complicated and bitter and violent. He'd spend more than half of his life killing at their command, and the thought of making his own choices frankly scared him. With the choice came responsibility for the outcome, no one to blame but himself. It was a road he'd started down the night of the Blackwater, refusing orders for the first time in his life and fleeing without a thought.

 _And that had worked out so well._

And now, he didn't really have a plan. He'd been so focused on getting her home that he hadn't thought through all the risks, all the possible pitfalls. He hadn't even thought about what he would do after he got her to White Harbor, if they ever got there.

Riverrun. He never thought they'd be bound west instead of north, headed toward the people behind this whole mess. He had been desperate to keep them to themselves, to do it just the two of them, and now he was willingly walking into their midst. He wasn't keen on thinking about how that would go for him

It wasn't about him, though. It didn't matter what they did to him, even if they killed him. She would at least be among her father's allies. Her brothers would be there, overjoyed to see her. If they made him their prisoner, tortured him, whatever, it would have been worth it to make sure she was as safe as she could be.

Perhaps they would even let them continue North. He had been concocting a plan, weak as it was, the night before. He would offer himself to their cause. It was the only thing of value he had, besides her. He was an asset in any campaign, and he'd come into his manhood with this little lord or that vying to have him as their free rider. He'd never wavered in sticking with his liege lords, though, and as a result he knew more about Lannister warfare than almost anyone else. He knew their ways, their tactics, a pittance of a reward for all the had done for him. If he could convince the Northerners to have him, he'd find a way to finally make them all fucking pay.

He did not like the Kingslayer's presence, and he liked the way he looked and touched Lenna even less. He knew Jaime Lannister had no designs on her, he was single-minded in that regard, but the proprietary way in which he talked to her made Sandor's blood run hot. He spoke to her like she was his cunt sister, dear to them. If he was no longer their dog, then she no longer belonged to them, either, and he intended to keep it that way.

A small voice told him that if she belonged to anyone, it was him. She said he was no one's dog now, but that wasn't exactly true either. Part of him had been hers for a decade, her share gradually increasing until there was none of him left that didn't belong to her. It had irked him, chafed him at the beginning, her hold over him a nuisance, something he abhorred. He'd splintered pells and broken faces in protest of her tightening grip, then let the anger go entirely. He couldn't pinpoint the moment when it had become his purpose and drive.

Jaime Lannister and his ilk couldn't possibly understand something like that, though perhaps the Lannisters lived it out in a perverse way, bound up in each other as they were. He wondered what the reaction would be when the Kingslayer made it back to the capital, maimed as he now was. He was not fit to be a Kingsguard anymore, not without the ability to hold a sword. Sandor wondered if he'd get the reception he thought he would. Tyrion, at least, would not cast him aside, of that he was sure. Despite this, Sandor couldn't quite muster up the rancor to wish the Kingslayer ill. He had joined the legion of broken things, and Sandor chose instead to wish for nothing at all. He couldn't make Jaime Lannister a different man, but he would change. How he rebuilt himself was up to him.

Jaime had cast the macabre hand that hung around his neck away. His eyes were dull, his face filthy, and Sandor felt an unexpected splash of pity. _World has gone fucking insane when you pity Jaime Lannister_ , he thought. He shook his head, glancing at the lady-knight who was nearby, observing that she, too, was looking at the Kingslayer. If Sandor wasn't mistaken, he saw the same expression of hopeless devotion on her face that he'd kept hidden for a decade. It wasn't pity that rose up in him when he saw it, but sympathy. He knew too well how that felt. He growled to himself.

 _What a fucking mess_.

He respected her. He hadn't expected to, but the way she'd fought and helped him dispose of the bodies the night before proved that she was what she wanted people to believe she was. There was nothing about her that wasn't honest. Odd as it sounded to himself, he saw something of himself in her. They were more alike than he would have expected, and not just because they were both ugly as sin. There was no beauty in her, save her eyes, at least not physical beauty, but she took what she did seriously, it was a vocation. He could tell that she was continuously called upon to prove herself, just as he had been, forced to demonstrate that despite the wreck that was his face, he had value, he had ability. He suspected that she was derided as much as he had been, too.

"I wish you a safe journey, Clegane," Tarth said. They were all standing stupidly in the road. The sun was rising, and he wanted to be off as soon as could be. "I know I don't have to tell you to take care of her."

"Always have," he replied, and her pale lips quirked.

"And you, Lady Helenna," the lady-knight said as she kept her mouthy horse in check. "I hope we meet again."

"As do I," Lenna replied. "Thank you for your aid."

Tarth dipped her head, and Sandor thought he could actually like her for reining her horse around and beginning to make her way up the road. No sense in dragging out a farewell.

Jaime Lannister lingered, his mouth slightly parted as he looked at Lenna. Sandor wished he would just get it fucking over with. These highborns and their overwrought performances had always worn him out.

"I never thought-"

"We none of us did," Lenna replied. "I would ask a favor of you, Jaime."

Sandor wasn't sure if it was the request or the use of his name, but it certainly got the Kingslayer's attention.

"Name it." Sandor thought he saw a glimmer of who the Kingslayer could be right then, honor or justice or something else heightening his color and giving clear focus to his eyes.

"You have promised not to tell your sister that we ran into each other," she started haltingly. Sandor grunted in relief to hear it. "But I would ask you to please tell Tyrion. Assure him that I am well. That I am safe."

Jaime Lannister looked distressed, but he nodded, the muscle of his jaw jumping. Sandor guessed there were many things fighting to be said, and the Kingslayer was quelling them. For her sake or his own, Sandor didn't know.

He nodded, his eyes narrowed. "You have my word." Sandor snorted, and Lenna stiffened against him. He shot Sandor a look of annoyance. "Farewell, dear Lenna."

"Farewell," she replied. Sandor found it in himself to nod at him, and he watched and waited as the Kingslayer drew his horse around and trotted after his companion.

He didn't want to linger, bringing Stranger about and setting off at a brisk trot, peculiarly happy to put them behind him, to be alone with Lenna on the road again. There was some relief in knowing they were beyond the Lannister raiding parties, at least, even if he was riding toward his own uncertain future. The only thing that mattered was getting her safely to her own people. He'd figure out the rest later.

They made camp just before twilight, the sun dipping low. Pleasure suffused him when it was Lenna that suggested a good site, and Lenna that built their fire. Pleasure and pride, though she was not yet herself. She had barely spoken all day, and being taciturn himself, he'd given up rather easily on trying to draw her out. He was content to feel her against him, warm under the hand that sat against her waist. She was pale, her face becoming grimy, her eyes dull, and Sandor knew she was struggling with what she had done. He did not know how to help her. He'd never had fucking words.

He left her for a time, walking in the woods in search of their dinner. Stunning two rabbits, he cracked their necks and brought them back to her, showing her how to skin them cleanly. She wrestled with the second one, having watched him do the first, but she did it, gutting them with the knife from her boot and mimicking him as she spitted them on a branch and set them to roast. He busied himself with finding an apple or two, a hunk of cheese with a bit of blue mold. He scraped it off and turned to find her tenderly stroking one fingertip over the soft fur of the rabbit's discarded pelt, her brow dark and tears trailing silently down her face.

He watched her to make sure that she ate, not surprised when she only managed to eat half of her meat, offering the rest to him with a face as pale and drawn as the day her mother had died. He wished he had a skin of wine left, but he settled instead for roasting the apple and holding her against him.

When they settled down for rest, she laid the bedrolls out one on top of the other, tucking herself against him as he circled her with his arms. Her hands soon began to wander in the dark, her mouth on his, and while it was bitter, it was sweet, too, and he didn't stop her. He gave her what she wanted, slowly and with so much restraint that he was trembling, but when she folded herself into him with her head on his shoulder, she slept. He stared up through the lacy silhouettes of the trees, stars winking and inconstant with each breeze, and he counted her breaths.

They reached Riverrun in three days, the bleached stone walls rising above the marshy fens. It was late afternoon, the light playing golden over the ramparts like some damn illumination in one of her old books. Sandor swallowed heavily as they approached, guards moving to block their path onto the bridge that led to the main gates.

"Who goes?"

He cleared his throat to answer, but Lenna spoke first.

"Lady Helenna Manderly of White Harbor, and my sworn-shield, Sandor Clegane."

The lad's face was a picture of astonishment and confusion. Stranger, tired from the journey, pawed impatiently and Sandor strained to keep him in check.

"I need to speak with my captain," the boy said, and he took off at a run across the bridge.

They waited, Lenna fidgeting and drumming her fingers against the pommel, Sandor digging his fingers into the tops of his thighs. He willed his breathing to remain steady. He hated waiting.

It was a half an hour before the boy returned with a troop of guards and a portly man with windblown curls. As soon as they appeared, Lenna sat forward in the saddle, leaning to get a better look. When it became clear that the rotund man was her brother, he could not stop her as she slid down Stranger's flank and took off at a stumbling run.

The guards surrounded them on all sides. He stayed mounted with his fists clenched as Lenna was wrapped up in her brother's embrace. Wendel Manderly's face crumpled, giving him the aspect of a well-fed bulldog, his cheeks wet and his nose red as he clutched his sister to him.

"Sandor Clegane," he called over her shoulder. "You have brought my sister safe to me. No harm shall come to you within these walls if you come peacefully. King Robb would speak with you. Immediately."

Lenna turned and looked at him, and if it wasn't for the dull gnawing of worry in his gut, he might have smiled. The light had returned to her face, roses in her cheeks, and to his surprise, she returned to him and lifted her arms. Sandor glanced at Wendel Manderly. The lord smiled weakly and nodded, and Sandor reached down and hauled her up, noticing with chagrin that she was lighter than she had been. He settled her against him as he guided a placidly walking stranger across the bridge and through the gates of Riverrun, trying hard to ignore the guards that flanked them with spears at the ready.

A/N: Was that better? Review, please. I need the encouragement. Needy writer, I know.


	44. Chapter 44

Lenna XLIV

Wendel looked older than she remembered, the tawny gold of his curls beginning to show streaks of their father's snowy white. His open, affable face was weary, lined, and far more serious than she would have expected of her youngest brother, even with the nearly twenty year difference in their ages. But his eyes were the same, the Manderly green and grey and amber, swirled together like a sea squall, and she felt like a girl again, so exceedingly glad to see him she was giddy. She allowed the brittle facade she'd put on to melt a little as he gruffly wrapped his arms around her, but she couldn't it go entirely, not yet.

She had gathered Lady Helenna of White Harbor around her to speak with the guard, knowing that the lads on duty would recognize her name and relying on her birth and bearing to do what little she could to protect the man behind her. The uncertainty of their welcome had made her sit taller, trying to project the confidence and gentility she hoped would shield them, at least temporarily, despite her tangled hair and mudstained gown. To her relief, it had seemed to work, the guards not immediately setting upon them, almost as if they had expected her to turn up at some point though shocked that she actually had. Her identity was now the only thing that could preserve them in the short-term, and it was strange that it should be her protecting him.

She knew it was exceptionally risky for him to have brought her to Riverrun, even now as she saw the sympathy in Wendel's familiar gaze. Her brother had gathered her to him, but she knew he was sizing up Sandor as he remained wooden and unmoving in the saddle. There was a tension in Wendel's arms that spoke of weariness and worry, and she temporarily buried her face against his shoulder like she was a child, comforted beyond telling to see him in such an unexpected place.

Wrapped up in her elder brother's embrace, she felt the strain ebb out of her like the tributaries at low tide, and she felt just as drained as the fens did once the waters had receded and left the oyster beds and salt grass bare. To see him after so much heartache and trouble brought a sad smile to her face, and that white banner unfurled beneath her breast, fluttering weakly but fluttering all the same.

Sandor had not moved, still perched on Stranger's back. She knew that if she turned his face would be an unreadable mask, neutral perhaps in her eyes and menacing in nearly everyone else's. The moment of peace she found in her reunion with her brother was interrupted as worry reasserted itself, and she took a deep breath to see how Sandor would be received.

She had not expected Wendel to be the one who greeted them, but she was glad beyond telling that it was him and not some other Northern lord. It was the best she could hope for, and she was aware that Wendel had approved of Sandor when he had accompanied her to White Harbor years earlier. The two had talked at length, shared interests when it came to martial matters, and she'd been stunned at the camaraderie they had built along with Wylis. She hoped that their past accord would help him now, would bring him at least safely into Riverrun without major incident.

"Sandor Clegane," he said, and she clenched her eyes tight in preparation. "You have brought my sister safe to me. No harm shall come to you within these walls if you come peacefully. King Robb would speak with you. Immediately."

The tight coil that had been winching across her shoulders went lax, and she squeezed Wendel tightly in gratitude. He looked down into her face, bushy eyebrows creased in question and she smiled softly. Manderlys were an insightful lot, though she knew he would want to speak with her at length. Later.

Without a word, she returned to Stranger and lifted her arms, silently asking Sandor to help her back up. He hesitated perhaps a half second, but after her brother's tacit consent he leaned down and hefted her easily back into her place before him on the saddle. Their little party did not speak on the long walk across the bridge and toward the gates, and Lenna's happiness at being reunited with her brother dimmed to hear the rhythmic footfalls of the soldiers that had surrounded them. She had barely even noticed their presence, far too caught up in happier, more hopeful thoughts.

Riverrun was a truly impressive castle. In the diminishing light, it was like something out of a fairy story, unlike many of the castles she had known. Its pale, sandstone walls were nearly white, like the New Castle, but the afternoon sun warmed them almost to a pink, the blue roofed turrets lovely against the deepening sky. The bailey was generous, squat, and welcoming for something constructed as a first defense, the portcullis raised to admit them within the walls. She didn't know where the fancy originated, perhaps she was just tired, but Lenna imagined Catelyn Stark on those ramparts as a girl, red hair flying in the breeze that came off the river. It almost made her smile to think it, but she shook her head against such a foolish and romantic notion. The castle may be beautiful, but castles were fortresses, and they were built to sustain warfare.

She'd been living a fairy story, she realized, but the reality was far more grim than the books would have had her believe. The times she had imagined some grand adventure or escape, some valiant tale, were too many to count. Living one, however, was not exactly what she would have ever expected. Looking at that shining castle, picturesque and grand, it was easy to want to forget they were surrounded by soldiers, that her champion might be seized as soon as they entered the gates. She felt deflated and laid bare, so tired she sagged against him and wondered how she could have ever believed such foolishness, yet alone yearned for it.

In the courtyard, Sandor dismounted and lifted Lenna down to the ground, hands spanning her waist. His touch lingered, fingers dragging along her sides, and she was reluctant to release his shoulders as well. It would be folly, though, to stand there in front of suspicious eyes like star-crossed characters from on of those damned stories. She drew away, folding her hands in front of her until her brother came to where she stood in the mud, uncertain and wary, and tucked her hand into his elbow. It was a struggle to lift her feet and follow him as he led her away from Sandor and further into the castle. The guards continued to surround them, and she knew Sandor followed. She glanced over her shoulder at him, only for him to turn his face from hers, giving her the scar. He refused look at her, his shoulders hunched as they followed Wendel into the Keep. Eyes followed them in a mix of curiosity and wariness, and Lenna thought she could almost feel the tension radiating from Sandor. She could not begin to imagine his feelings. She was barely able to grapple with her own.

Wendel explained quietly that he was leading them to the Great Hall. To get there, they had to walk through the castle's godswood, but Lenna thought that garden was a more appropriate term. There was a heart tree, a pale weirwood that stretched its slender branches upward in such a way that they reminded her of the Maiden on the Sept of Snows. Instead of a wood, there were little pockets of wildflowers that hid themselves along the bubble of a stream, and the air was full of birdsong. It was free of artifice, and Lenna could detect no evidence of human hands in the arrangement of grasses and flowers, a little wilderness tucked inside the sandstone walls. As beautiful as it was, as peaceful, she derived little pleasure from it, far too anxious about the welcome that would meet them once they had traversed it. She both wanted to have it over with and wanted the path the stretch on forever so they never had to confront Robb Stark.

The Great Hall of Riverrun bordered the river itself, one long wall made up almost entirely of slender, lofty windows. The view was over the fertile Riverlands, the wide, rolling hills and trees, green and lush, just beginning to be swathed in lines of fog like specters. Looking at it cooled Lenna's mind, still running too quickly, taking in too much and worrying without ceasing. Everything seemed suspended, in crystal or water, time moving thickly. The sun was beginning to cast the room in hues of red and gold, the pale stone reflecting the light back tepidly as the sky began to deepen from washed-out day into the profound and somber blue of twilight.

Her eyes adjusted gradually to the dim, picking out the candles set in their tall racks, flames sputtering and bathing portions of the room in liquid light. They could not penetrate to the high ceiling, and against her will, Lenna remembered her entry through the Lion's Mouth at Casterly Rock. It was an unwelcome thought. This place was likewise unwelcoming, though she still had a sliver of hope that all would be well. Slender, fragile like a shard of glass, but hope remained.

A chill skittered up her spine as she entered with her brother. He ambled along as familiarly as if this was the Merman's Court, setting a brisk pace as he crossed the distance to the opposite end of the hall. From the door, Lenna could faintly make out a shadow there, leaning over a large table spread with parchment.

"Wendel, was it really her?"

She recognized the voice at once, and the shadow stood and straightened, turning toward them. As she drew closer, Lenna could see the ruddy light as it lit the auburn flames of his hair, the wide blue eyes. Robb Stark came slowly around the table, his expression avid, his jaw tight with what she couldn't say. The boyish softness that had still been in his features when last she saw him had melted away, leaving him handsome if hollow of cheek. He'd grown a beard and developed a set to his shoulders that left no doubt that he was the man in charge, his duty made manifest in his posture.

"It is, your grace," Wendel replied, his voice trembling with emotion. "Indeed, it is Lenna."

She stepped forward to stand beside her brother, surprised when Robb came to her and hugged her heartily. It was not an action she would have expected of a king, but she was reminded of her last meeting with him in Winterfell. It felt a lifetime ago. He must have surprised himself, too, because he quickly backed away and took her hand in his in a much more courtly way, eyes warm as he searched her face.

"We are so relieved to see you, my lady," he said solemnly. "We had truly thought you lost to us."

Lenna looked down, tears threatening to choke her. She wondered at the rush of feeling that overtook her, not fully understanding its source.

"Thank you, your grace. I am so glad to be among you all once more. I never thought I'd see you, any of you, ever again." She hadn't, remembering her desperation to send one last letter to her family before the Blackwater had begun. She had never dreamed that she would be standing in Riverrun with Sandor at her back, Robb Stark a King in the North and looking at her with unexpected care and genuine relief.

"Please, you must be exhausted," he said, gesturing to one of the several chairs nearby. "I know you must want to rest, but I believe we have things we must discuss first."

"Of course," she replied, settling stiffly into her seat. Her brother had wandered to the windows, his hands clasped behind her back as he looked out at the waters. _Sandor_ , she thought in panic, looking for him in the gloom. He had made it halfway down the chamber, still flanked by armed guards. He was glowering, shoulders stooped and head lowered, the Hound creeping into his posture in silent self-defense. He held his hands open at his sides, his gaze locked on Robb Stark.

"Come," Robb Stark said coolly. "I'd speak with you, too, Hound."

Sandor took a step forward, his guard moving with him with mirror-like accuracy. Lenna could see the annoyance in his face, and she prayed that he would handle the situation with patience.

She needn't have worried at all.

"Your grace," he ground out, his fingers curling just perceptibly enough to show his effort. Robb Stark looked back at him without a shred of intimidation. Lenna hadn't anticipated that, Sandor acknowledging Robb Stark as a king. She was wrapping her brain around the idea herself. King in the North. The contrast of the young man and Joffrey, or even to Robert Baratheon, was striking, and not at all in a negative fashion. Watching Robb Stark stand with his chin lifted and his hands behind his back, Lenna thought that he looked exactly like a king ought, handsome and strong with his gaze unwavering and open to a man many others would have immediately clapped in irons. Lenna was heartened to realize that he was going to hear Sandor out, even if the outcome was not as she wished it to be.

"I should have you taken to the courtyard and beheaded," Robb said, his tone straightforward and even a little indulgent. "In fact, I ordered my men to kill you on sight when I first heard that a woman claiming to be Lady Helenna was at our gate. But it was Manderly that spoke for you."

Her heart sputtered, a gasp escaping her as a hand landed on her throat. Lenna looked at Wendel with open gratitude, tears again springing in her eyes.

"Your grace," she said, "if you would let me speak for him myself-"

"You will have your say, my lady," he replied. "But consider that while we are relieved to have you with us, safe and unharmed, you have been ten years in the capital. The queen has rejoiced in lording your close association with the Lannister family over your father and brothers. I doubt everything she said was untrue, and I do not know if I can trust your words, not yet."

Lenna had not considered that she should not be trusted, though she supposed she should have expected it. Robb was right, she had been a confidant of an enemy queen, a tutor and guardian of her children, and one of them by marriage. If everything had gone according to plan, she would no longer be a Manderly, but a Lannister. She shuddered to realize that had that happened, she would have been cut off from them entirely, knowing full well what had happened throughout the history of the Seven Kingdoms when women found themselves married to a House at odds with their own. If Joffrey had allowed her to marry Tyrion, her safety would have been assured in the short term, but she would have been expected to act against her own family. She felt, perhaps for the first time, that Joff had done her a favor in refusing Tyrion's plan, instead setting into motion the tumultuous series of events that now saw her at least safe in the company of those she would have chosen if given the chance.

"Your grace," Wendel protested, striding back toward his king with storms in his eyes. Robb raised a hand. Her brother looked to her, his face red as he silently blustered, and Lenna shook her head in resignation.

"Let him speak for himself," Robb said, turning his attention back to Sandor. "How did you come to be here, Hound?"

Sandor inhaled sharply, glancing at his feet. "I stole her, your grace," he said lowly, slowly raising his eyes to Robb Stark's. "I believed that Stannis Baratheon had won the Blackwater, would siege the Red Keep. I took her to keep her safe. She could not stay there, not any more."

"Why?" Robb asked. "She'd been there for ten years without incident, why take her then in the middle of a battle? Wasn't it more dangerous to leave in the midst of fighting?"

"She's been through enough," he replied urgently. "She didn't deserve to have to go through what was going to happen next, whether it was a siege or Joffrey's victory. Do with me what you will, your grace, but do not doubt her. She is not theirs, and she never was. I should have done it years ago, but I have done it now."

"Done what?"

"Gotten her out of there. You're right, your grace. Ten years she's been their plaything, and then Joffrey went and betrothed her out of spite."

"To your brother." Robb's eyes were cold as he looked at Sandor, but to his credit, he never wavered.

"Yes, to my fucking brother," Sandor spat through gritted teeth, his hands flexing at his sides.

"And you brought her here." Robb's tone conveyed a measure of confusion, perhaps even wonder. In it, Lenna heard opportunity. Robb Stark was too like his father to dismiss Sandor out of hand, to dismiss her. She remembered how Ned Stark had given her multiple chances to leave the capital, how keenly she had felt she was disappointing him with her staunch refusal. She wished that she had explained why it was she could not desert the Lannisters rather than have him believe, as his son must now, that she had made her choice based on loyalty to the queen instead of loyalty to her family.

"I didn't plan to," Sandor replied truthfully. "I meant to take her to White Harbor. I would still, if you'd allow me to pass." Lenna doubted very much that the King in the North would allow any such thing. She felt it very likely that they were stuck at Riverrun, at least for the time being.

"Why should I?" Robb asked righteously. "Why should I do anything other than give you the death you undoubtedly deserve?"

"Do what you will to me, grace," he replied calmly. "Only, do not punish her."

Robb seemed unsettled by this, and Lenna was as well. All the fight had left Sandor's frame, his shoulders slumped and his face slack as he looked at Robb dispassionately. Her belly clenched against the threat of hysteria, her fingers curled tight around the arms of her chair as she waited for Robb Stark to speak, to give his judgement. Instead, the poor boy rubbed a hand over his face and looked to Wendel.

"I can help," Sandor offered hesitantly, his eyes steady. Robb's attention snapped back to him in disbelief, and Lenna shut her eyes as her heart froze to ice. "I know them, your grace. I know them very well. I know how they work, and I've fought for them most of my life. I can help you fight against them now."

"You'd turn traitor, then?" Robb prodded, his brows disappearing under the fall of his hair in open condescension. Sandor gritted his teeth.

"Haven't I already,?" he asked in reply. "When I walked away from Joffrey on the ramparts and went in search of her, to take her home, I cut off any contract I had with them, and I had none. Not really."

"And why should we trust you?" Robb demanded, derision and mocking lacing his tone. He was looking at Sandor with narrowed eyes, incomprehension in his face.

"You have every reason not to." Sandor was always honest, even when it risked his neck. "I wouldn't trust me at all, your grace. But I'm not lying. I am not theirs. Haven't been for a long time."

"Would you swear fealty to me, then?" Robb Stark pressed, tipping his head back like he was issuing a dare. Sandor grunted, his eyes sliding to Lenna for the first time since this interview had begun. She looked back at him desperately, her hands clutching the arms of the chair. She did not exactly understand where Robb was going, or what he wanted from Sandor. Half of her felt he was granting this interview to save himself any guilt when he ordered Sandor's execution.

"Would it keep her safe?" Sandor asked in return, his eyes not leaving hers. "I swore an oath to her."

"She is in no danger here," Robb replied. "She is among her own people now. She no longer needs your oath." Robb looked to Lenna then, and she saw the entreaty for her to tell the whole truth in his gaze.

"He is my shield," Lenna interrupted, no longer able to stay silent. "Robb," she stopped, shaking her head at the mistake, "your grace, he takes no oaths, but he is my shield."

"Do you need one, my lady?"

"I have," she replied honestly. "I had great need of one. I am among my people now, as you say, but that doesn't change the fact that he is my shield. There is no stipulation in that pledge that releases him if I should no longer have need of his protection."

"You were not coerced into accepting him?" Robb asked, speaking in a way that made it clear he was uninterested in Sandor's perspective. "You did not say the words under duress?"

"No!" she burst out. "Your grace," she tried again, gentling herself, "he has done everything in his power to protect me, almost since I arrived in King's Landing. He has never been anything but a true ally to me."

"But he would renounce his king," Robb said seriously. "That is no mean thing, my lady."

"You have renounced him as well," Lenna protested, stunned by the implication and narrowing her eyes. "You have made war against Joffrey, and you would chastise this man for abandoning him?"

Robb had the grace to look mildly chastened, as if he hadn't quite considered that before. She was instantly reminded of how young he was, how unseasoned in role for all he put on a strong show of authority.

"He ran in the midst of a battle." Even Robb didn't seem convinced that this was unforgivable, but doubt still clouded his face.

 _This is the chance_.

"Because there were no other choices," she said hurriedly, her voice rising in panic and pitch. She could not think straight, she had to make him understand. _He must understand_. "Stannis Baratheon was going to siege the Keep if they won. You know what happens in sieges. The queen...the queen had brought Ser Ilyn Payne into the solar. She was going to order our deaths. Those were the options if Stannis won, rape or death. Both, if you were unlucky. And if Joffrey won, my options were the same. No matter what the outcome of the bloody Blackwater, I was sentenced to rape and death." She had never said it out loud, never allowed herself to fully acknowledge what her future would have been if she'd stayed there in the Red Keep, if he hadn't managed to secret her out.

"You shouldn't be questioning him for what he did, doubting him as you are, you should be celebrating such loyalty and valor, as I do," she continued, knowing that her voice was almost incomprehensible, only distantly aware of the tears that were coursing down her cheeks. Her mouth tasted of salt and iron. "Even now," she pressed, her pleading making the young king wince, "he would die to keep me safe. That's why he brought me here. He knew there was a possibility that you would kill him, but he made a vow to keep me safe. He has gone to extraordinary lengths to honor that vow. If he was the scoundrel you wish to believe he is, wouldn't he have abandoned me instead of risking his life time and again? Wouldn't he have shirked it? The fact is, your grace, he takes no vows he could break." Robb looked back at her, and she saw him start to falter. "You have to listen to him, you have to trust him," she begged. "Please, your grace, do not sentence him to die. His death would be on my hands, and I-"

"You are overtired, my lady," Robb said softly. "Forgive me, I did not mean to upset you so. I must think this over, and I would talk with the Hound alone. You have my assurances that he will come to no harm, and I will try to hear him out," he said, taking her fingers in his again. Lenna dropped her head, covering her face with her free hand. She had the strangest feeling that now she had begun to cry she would not be able to stop. The king's voice was gentle when next he spoke. "You'll be given your own quarters and a maid to serve you."

"And Clegane," she replied thickly. "Where will you put him?"

Robb leveled his glare at Sandor again, who to his credit weathered the young man's scrutiny with patience. He did not answer her.

"Your grace-" she started, her voice cracking at the thought of him in chains.

"Lenna," Sandor said quietly. "It's alright. They're not going to hurt me. You need to rest." He looked back at her steadily, the gray light of his eyes unwavering. She felt her lip tremble again, but she nodded, rising to her feet.

Her brother was at her side in an instant, his hand beneath her arm as he led her away.

Sandor XLIV

 _Bollocks_.

He forced himself not to watch her being ushered away, her brother spanning her shoulders with one arm, supporting her with his other hand beneath her elbow. She looked frail in comparison to portly Wendel, but it wasn't just the difference in their sizes that made him think so. He'd been noticing it for months. She seemed to be fading, her cheekbones too sharp, her eyes hollow, the lines of her neck too finely corded. He felt it when she lay with him, the plush softness that had driven him mad receding, leaving her ribs visible and hard, her hips two nobby points against him instead of the fleshiness he'd yearned for. Now, her tears seemed to have drained her entirely, and she went with her brother looking as weak as a fledgling, her shoulders still hitching and a visible tremor in her limbs.

Robb Stark was right. She needed rest before she collapsed from exhaustion. She needed a proper bed, proper food, and a bath. Clean, dry clothes that fit, and more to shelter her at night than his cloak or hers. He was not sorry to see her go, though he hoped it was not the last time. He could not bear the thought that the last time he saw her involved her pleading for his life.

He was startled from his melancholy by the sharp report of a door being slammed open.

"You can't tell me that you're going to listen to him?" The tall figure of Catelyn Stark entered, her shoulders rigid with indignation and her fists balled at her sides. "Why was I not sent for immediately? Where is Lady Helenna?"

"Sent to rest," Robb replied, pursing his lips in frustration. "Clegane was going to start explaining himself. I promised Lenna we'd hear him, so I will. Starting at the beginning, if you please." He gestured for Sandor to get to talking and ignoring his mother's angry huffing altogether.

It took great effort, and there were times he had to stop entirely to collect himself, to temper the rage that tightened his muscles and clenched his fists, but Sandor made himself keep talking. Robb Stark looked back at him neutrally, the lad's face a perfect mask of forbearance even as his mother scoffed from her place at the mantle. Cat Stark had always found it difficult to look at him, much like her daughter, not that he cared. She was standing straight-backed by the fire, her arms across over her chest, shaking her head in disbelief or derision from time to time.

He didn't know exactly what Robb Stark wanted, so he started at the beginning as he was bid, detailing how Helenna Manderly had been brought to the capital, ignored for years until she was useful. He told of how she taught the little grace, how she had unwittingly gotten into Cersei's circle. He explained how he'd been sent with her to White Harbor, how he'd openly told Wyman Manderly he'd been sent as a spy, and how the old lord had helped him.

Cat Stark snarled. "Wyman Manderly would never-"

"Ask him," Sandor replied simply. "Or Lord Wendel, or Lord Wylis. Or Lady Helenna. They all knew."

"They knew and never told Lord Eddard?" she said in flat disbelief.

"It was a deeply personal matter, my lady," he replied. "But I'm sure any of them could explain. It isn't my story to share, even now."

Robb gestured for him to continue. He talked of coming back, of her loneliness, the trip to Casterly Rock, to Winterfell, the way Cersei gradually came to rely on Lenna, no longer looking at her as Myrcella's tutor, but more as a friend. And he spoke of how anxious it made her, how dangerous it was for her. He made sure they heard about how Lord Arryn and Lord Stark had both jeopardized her, not understanding how deeply mired she was, how and why she refused Lord Eddard's offer to flee.

"She could have been safe-"

"She already had a target painted on her back, my lady," he ground out. "She always did. It would have only taken one misstep. If she'd have gone then, the queen would have taken that as a serious offense, and it would not have gone well for her, or her family, even before all this shit began."

That seemed to shut her up momentarily. And then he told them about Joffrey, his unadulterated hatred for Lenna and how he'd started to set his sights on Sansa, how he'd made them both walk the ramparts. How he'd made them look at Ned Stark's tarred head on its spike.

"Stop," Catelyn commanded, her voice deep with grief. "That is enough."

"If you cannot stomach it, mother, you need not stay," Robb said, swallowing thickly. "Continue, Clegane."

"It wasn't the worst of it, my lady," Sandor said, smirking at Robb's new use of his name instead of Hound. "Though it will be hard for you to hear." Cat Stark pressed her fingers against her lips and nodded. "He had your daughter beaten, in court. He made me take Lady Helenna's hair. I hacked it off with a knife in the throne room for all the lords and ladies to see."

"When?" Robb breathed, his eyes wide in concern and disgust. "When did this happen?"

"After the Oxcross, your grace," Sandor replied. "In payment for your treason. Or so Joffrey said."

"Oh my gods, oh my sweet girl," Catelyn whined, her eyes cast upwards as she attempted not to weep.

"Lord Tyrion tried to protect them, but he was unsuccessful." Sandor's veins still filled with rancor when he thought of the little lord's futile attempts to protect the Northern women. Despite how hard he claimed to have tried, Sandor thought him spineless.

"Sansa," Catelyn said roughly. "Was she well? When you left."

"She was alive, my lady," he replied, wondering if she would mark his meaning. Alive and well were two different things. "Lady Helenna wanted to bring her with us, but she would not come. She was convinced Stannis would do right by her."

"And you stood by, you left her-" Cat choked.

"What could I do, my lady?" Sandor asked, cocking his head at her. He was surprisingly not angry with the woman. He wanted to be furious with her snorts and guffaws, with the way she narrowed her eyes at him in the brief seconds she could look on his face. But he wasn't. He was too tired and too weary to be angry. She was clearly in pain. "When I paused for a moment, that day they were humiliated, he threatened to take Lenna's head. What do you imagine would have happened if I had refused my orders entirely?"

"You could have-" the lady spluttered, her mouth opening and closing aimlessly as she fought for words, any expression for the rage that still lit her eyes like braziers.

"Repudiated him? Resigned my place? And left them completely on their own?" he asked, his voice pitched low. "Lady Stark, I will not lie to you and claim to have given more than a passing fuck about your daughter. She is an innocent girl, though not a very bright one, but I would never have left Helenna Manderly to them on her own. Not for anything."

"I wonder what inspires such devotion," Cat said, and while her eyes weren't happy when they lit on his, they weren't as disdainful.

"So you stole her," Robb replied before Sandor felt the need to answer the king's mother. He was not ready yet to open that subject with them. He might never be, though he suspected it was coming. "You carried her away from what you perceived as grave danger."

"Perceived," he scoffed. "How was it not grave danger, your grace? Have you lived through a siege?"

"No," Robb replied. Anger bolted through his chest with the force of a scorpion. He hated how these wars were fought by little, inexperienced lords, ones who had never known the battlefield but who thought they could command thousands. Robb Stark was not dumb, and surely he had been instructed on war and tactics since his boyhood, but it galled Sandor that he was being questioned by a king no more than a lad while he, battle-hardened as he was, was expected to defend his very right to breathe.

"I have," he thundered, "and I know what happens to women, even highborns, during a siege. I was not going to leave her there."

"But Joffrey won that battle," Catelyn retorted. "There was no storming of the Keep."

"No," Sandor replied. "In which case, it is very likely that Lady Sansa was unharmed. But Lenna was in danger one way or the other. She spoke rightly just now. She had been sentenced to death, worse than death, in her betrothal."

"Your brother again."

"Aye," he replied. "He's put two wives in the ground, and he's not going to put her there, too. Not while I have a breath left in my body. I'm sure I'm not mistaken in thinking that he's probably hunting for her."

Robb confirmed this suspicion with a brief nod. "Raiding parties have been reported in our territory. Your brother is an unconscionable brute, but forgive me if it seems a bit of an overreaction to a broken betrothal."

"It isn't broken," he said plainly.

"What do you mean?" Robb asked, clearly confused.

"Nothing went the way it was supposed to go," Sandor said. "After Joffrey went after her, made me go after her, they decided that a marriage could be her shield, but she was never supposed to go to Gregor."

"Then who?" Cat demanded.

"Lord Tyrion," he answer flatly. "He offered her marriage himself, but the king-Joffrey- he would not hear of it."

"Tyrion Lannister wanted to wed her?" Catelyn Stark paced before the hearth. "She'd have been Lady of Casterly Rock, Tywin could not have been pleased."

"I understand that he supported the match, my lady," Sandor replied. "He'd thought it over for years. They all approved of it. They love her. But Joffrey would not hear of it."

"Why?"

"He dislikes Lady Helenna, my lady." Sandor had never figured out why it was that Joff had turned on her, remembering so clearly how he'd run to her in his childhood, clambering into her lap and reading with her, playing with his blocks and toys. Once she'd taken the faintest interest in Myrcella, the boy had soured.

"Why?" she repeated, clearly frustrated.

"I don't know," Sandor replied, shaking his head. "Nothing he does makes much sense. It doesn't matter really, does it?"

"The queen, her brother, her father- they all opposed Lady Helenna's betrothal to your brother, you say?"

"Aye," he replied. "At least in private. I believe that they actually love her, as much as they can. They did not want to place her in such risk. They tried-" It pained him to think of that one bolt of joy, of promise, that he hadn't been able to stop himself from feeling when he was on the table as an alternative. Granted, he didn't think it would have changed much, and she certainly wouldn't be safer if it had come to pass.

"They tried what?"

"They had thought to negotiate with Joffrey, before the betrothal was made known. But then Stannis began to move."

"What was the alternative?" Robb asked.

"I was," he said lowly. "They were going to offer me in his stead."

Robb reared back. "Why you?"

"It would have still carried the sting of insult, but I would never harm her," he replied, feeling his throat thicken at the disgust on Robb's face. It was the very expression he dreaded, that had haunted his meager hopes. Any tie to him would denigrate her in the eyes of these people. _And why shouldn't it? You've never deserved her_.

"Add to that you were close to them, they'd still have her under their thumb," Cat ground out. She clenched her eyes and her jaw. "Robb, we can't-"

"I was close to them," Sandor replied. "I have been personal guard to the queen since she went to King's Landing. Afterward, I served Joffrey. I heard plenty in that time. Plans to take over the Iron Throne, to unite the ports."

"But Joffrey is already king."

"Aye," Sandor replied, "but he's not reasonable. They can't control him. They fear him. Your father," he ground out, "no one thought he'd be executed that day. At least, not the queen or her brother. Not Lady Sansa, and certainly not Lady Helenna."

"You did," Cat breathed, the words accusation and venom. "You knew."

"I did not," he replied, "but neither was I surprised by it," he replied. "I know Joffrey. I know them all. I can be of service to you, if you will let me."

Robb Stark rose and went to the hearth, leaning his forearm against it and pinching the bridge of his nose. He looked into the fire for a long time, and Sandor could almost feel Catelyn Stark's eyes boring into him.

"You spoke of Lady Sansa," she said quietly. "You have not mentioned my Arya."

Sandor closed his eyes and bowed his head. He was not enjoying the interview, not least because the addition of Lady Stark meant he was inflicting an abundance of pain in what he wanted to be a simple accounting of the facts. Feelings jeopardized his already weak case.

"I have nothing to report, my lady," he replied. "She has not been seen since the raid on her father's household."

"Is she dead?"

"I don't know," he answered simply. "She was scrappy, my lady. We received no reports of a suspicious death, we've heard nothing of her at all."

Robb turned back to him. "It will take a great deal of convincing to bring my lords to accept you, Hound. Your reputation is a millstone around your neck, but I'm inclined to give you the opportunity to prove yourself."

Relief washed like ice through him, and it was a wonder that he didn't physically stagger, settling for blinking hard and taking a deep breath to steady himself again.

"Thank you, your grace," Sandor replied, his voice gravelly with emotion.

"One question, though," he said, looking through the fall of ruddy curls on his forehead. He had returned to the table, leaning over the maps and bracing his hands on its edges. "You said that the Lannisters believe that Lady Helenna is theirs. Is she?"

"Fuck no," Sandor growled, his voice bitter with spleen as his head came up and his chin rose in indignation. "No more than I am."

"I find that hard to believe," Cat Stark snarled. "You are nothing but a dog. You've served that vile nest of vipers for your entire life. Do you expect us to believe that you would turn on your master?"

Sandor grimaced, the smirk twisting into a snarl as fire lit in his belly. Robb Stark had already said he'd give him a chance, and Sandor was growing weary of his mother second guessing him.

"I have no master," he growled. _Only a mistress_ , he wanted to retort, but he bit his tongue.

"We will speak again this evening after supper," Robb replied. "I warn you, Hound, that my generals will be harder to convince than I am. Best be prepared."

"Aye, your grace," he responded. Robb nodded briefly, then turned and strode from the room, leaving Sandor with the guards. He bit his tongue to avoid barking at them, going quietly as they led him from the Great Hall, Cat Starks' narrowed eyes nearly palpable on his back.

A/N: So instead of packing, I've been writing instead! I'm sure I will regret it, but I'm working three chapters out again, which is where I like to be! Woo!

Thank you for your continued reviews. They've been especially heartening as we start to forge ahead in a completely new direction. I suppose at this point, we can more or less agree that things have gone AU. Not what I'd originally planned, but I'm liking it, to be honest. A lot less like forcing a puzzle to fit together when the pieces are almost right, but not quite, and more like framing a new puzzle from the same image.

As always, I'm so pleased that so many of you have stayed along for this ride. It's my privilege to keep writing for you. I hope you know how much I appreciate your readership and feedback. Keep it coming! Love.


	45. Chapter 45

Lenna XLV

Wendel hovered at the door. He had led her to a pretty room, small with a four-poster bed and a view over the verdant Riverlands, standard issue for all ladies' guest quarters in Keeps throughout the Seven Kingdoms. Really, she could have been anywhere from the Stormlands to her own White Harbor, but the familiar environment did little to ease her. She had stopped crying on the long walk through the castle, and truthfully, she was too tired to weep any more. She wanted nothing more than to collapse on the bed, but being in such soft surroundings only served to emphasize how filthy she was from traveling. She looked down at her dress, taking in the muddy, torn hem and the numerous and nameless stains that spotted the skirts. Her hands were grimy, Locke's blood still dark around her nails, and her hair was greasy where it fell against her neck and chin.

"May I?" Wendel asked, hesitating at the threshold. Lenna squeezed her eyes, the last bit of moisture collecting on her eyelashes. She wanted very much to get out of her gown and take a bath, but she nodded. He entered, leaving the door open a crack behind him.

"You are well? Truly?" he asked, wringing his hands together. He was standing apart from almost as if her were afraid of her. Perhaps he was.

"Aye," she replied, sitting on the edge of the bed. She rubbed the back of her neck and braced the heels of her hands against the feather mattress. It was plush, so soft that she just wanted to fall backward into it and slip into sleep. She felt as if every one of her bones was broken or bruised, and it was getting harder and harder for her to think coherently.

"We thought you were dead, Lenna," he choked suddenly. She looked at him from behind the dank curtain of her hair. He had grown pale, his eyes tortured. "It was like to kill Father when that bag arrived."

She closed her eyes, too tired to do much else. She was sorry for their pain, truly she was, but there was nothing she could have done to prevent it. "I wish there had been a way for me to tell you all."

"I know," he replied, wiping a hand across his face. "And so fast on the heels of Wylis."

"What?" Lenna asked, her head flying up so quickly a muscle in her neck twinged. A new ball of panic began to roil in her belly, her lungs shrinking. "Isn't he here?"

Wendel looked at her desolately, lips parted. "No, my dear. He was taken prisoner at the Green Fork."

Anger flashed through her, anger and despair. She had no idea that Wylis was captive. Locke had said both of her brothers were at Riverrun, he had made it sound like they were looking for her. But it wasn't Locke's mistake or misinformation that distressed her the most. It was Cersei's.

"She knew," Lenna hissed, her voice rough and sounding like it belonged to someone else. "She knew he was captured and she didn't tell me."

"Who?" Wendel asked.

"Cersei," Lenna whispered. "She called me to her as soon as we had word of the Green Fork, of Ser Jaime, and I comforted her. I held her as she cried over him. I cared for her and she didn't even tell me my own brother was captive."

Wendel looked at her apologetically, clearly at a loss for words. She couldn't exactly explain how she felt. Betrayed. Used. It made her so furious she could barely see, and to her relief and consternation, tears rose again. She pushed them down forcefully, the cold anger she thought she'd mastered rising again from her gut. She felt like a bit of frayed cloth, an old handkerchief, one that had been washed over and over again and was now completely wrung out. She drew her dirty wrist across her mouth and straightened her back. She was so dreadfully tired of crying, of everything.

"Where is he?" she asked dully, unable to look at her brother and already knowing the answer.

"Held at Harrenhal," he whispered.

She winced as if she'd been stung. Harrenhal. She'd never seen the place, but it must be cursed, an earthly hell that contained her monsters, and now her brother.

 _I should be there, not Wylis,_ she thought dejectedly, closing her eyes against the idea of her jolly, portly brother in a dark, dank cell.

"Is there any hope of ransoming him?" she asked, knowing the likely answer.

"Lord Tywin offered to send him back if Father abandoned King Robb." Wendel's eyes and voice were flat as a becalmed sea.

"And he refused." Wendel nodded. Lenna passed her palm over her eyes, wiping away the wetness there. "Wendel, everything is such a mess. And for what? A parcel of quarrels that powerful people decide to settle with the lives of others."

"What do you mean?"

"Tyrion Lannister had as much to do with the attempt on Bran Stark as I did, brother," she said tiredly. "I know him well. He isn't capable of that kind of thing. He's not like his father, or his sister. He doesn't think that way. He'd never harm a child. But that accusation, that decision to take him captive...that has turned the world upside down."

"It isn't that simple-"

"Of course it isn't," she bit back at him. "Of course it isn't that simple. It is so very, very complicated and convoluted. But, perhaps, this series of events would not have been set in motion if she had staid herself, gone through the proper channels, followed the bloody rules-"

"There are no rules, Lenna," Wendel replied solemnly. "You should know that better than all of us."

She sighed, passing her hand over her face again. "There are finite options, brother. Trajectories, outcomes. Wendel, tell me truthfully- do you believe Robb Stark to be a capable ruler?"

Wende flattened his lips and looked at the floor. "He is our king, Lenna."

"Yes," she said. "He is a king. Just as Joffrey is. Just as Stannis claims to be, as Renly claimed to be."

"And Balon Greyjoy," Wendel said.

"What?" she said. "Since when?"

"Shortly into this whole mess. Styles himself King of the Iron Islands. He has captured Winterfell, or, rather, Theon has."

"Theon Greyjoy?" she barked. "That mealy mouthed-"

"Lenna," Wendel said tiredly. "Lenna, I didn't mean to upset you. I thought you knew."

She shook her head and rose from where she was perched on the edge of her bed. She went to the window, looking out over the rolling hills, the sun still sending liquid golden light over the landscape, lighting the little streams and rivers into molten threads through the meadows.

Her brother was silent for a long moment, but the air was taut with tension as he weighed his words.

"I will send a raven to Father immediately. What will you have me say?"

"Let me send it," she said, feeling old beyond her years as she pinched the bridge of her nose. "I need to think, though. I will bathe and put on fresh clothes. If you will bring me parchment, I will write to him myself."

"He would like that, I'm sure," Wendel replied. "I'll return before dinner. Will you attend?"

Lenna shrugged. She felt that the last thing she could do was face a crowd of people in a closed room. The very idea made her want to go to sleep and never wake back up.

Wendel didn't press her, slipping out the door and murmuring a few soft words to someone in the hall. A trio of maids entered carrying a tub and kettles of water, silently going about their work as she watched them dejectedly from the edge of the bed. When they withdrew, she carefully peeled off the gown and chemise, neither of them fit for more than fuel for the fire, but she folded them carefully anyway. She didn't think she'd ever felt anything better than the tub full of hot water as she reclined in the bath in the soft heat of the modest hearth, though she could barely enjoy it. The fire was lit, and she took her time scrubbing the grime from herself. Her hair had become wormy and greasy, and she lathered it vigorously to the point of pain, but it again fell in curls around her face instead of dank mats.

When she rose from the tub, she noted with distaste that it was the color of river water, a dull gray-brown that swirled with dirt. One of the maids had quietly entered the room and stood at the ready. Lenna welcomed the towel that was spread for her gratefully.

A selection of gowns had been found for her, and Lenna decided on a dark blue one that fit her well enough. She wouldn't be surprised if it was Catelyn Stark's own dress. They were nearly the same height, though Lenna was a little taller. It was only slightly too short for her, the delicate bone of her ankle barely peeping from below the hem. It left her feeling rough and naked, no longer fit for such fine things after a month sleeping nestled in hollows or curled up against Sandor in some little cave.

Lenna breathed deeply once the door was closed, the maid bustling out with her soiled clothes. She stretched out on top of the bed and slept like the dead. She didn't even make it to the plump pillow with its embroidered sham, her head falling on her arm like she was still sleeping beside a campfire.

A knock woke her perhaps an hour later. The sun had gone down completely, and there was no moon, no light in the room except the glow of the fire.

She rose, yawning, and answered the door, finding Wendel on the other side of it. He carried an inkwell and a raven scroll.

"Come in," she said, opening the door wide enough for him to enter. There was no desk at which to write, so she set the materials on the casement window.

"Are you feeling any better?" he asked solicitously.

"I had a bath and a nap," she replied. "I feel a new person, really."

"I am glad. You are so thin, Lenna."

"That's what travel will do," she said gently. They were both lying to themselves if they thought she'd lost nearly two stone in just the short weeks since she'd fled the capital. She hadn't had an appetite in months, too sick with worry to eat more than she absolutely had to not to collapse. She wondered how much Wendel knew of the last months, how much he would want to know. She wagered he wasn't quite prepared to hear everything that had passed, especially her encounter with their kinsman. She shuddered to remember it, the incident felt like another lifetime though it hadn't even been a week.

"How is Clegane?" she asked tightly, her mind never far from him.

"He's safe for now," Wenden replied. "I told you, I vouched for him, and Father will, too, once he knows that he's brought you here. I do not think he is in any danger, not from King Robb."

"Will they imprison him?" she asked tightly. She'd had many flashes of him leaning against dank stone walls, his wrists and ankles bound again. It made her feel nauseated.

"No," he replied. "He's being given quarter in the barracks. With a guard for now. King Robb wants to give him a chance."

"To do what?" she asked carefully. Surely Wendel didn't mean as a soldier. Sandor was her shield now, he couldn't just sell his services to the highest bidder as he'd used to do.

 _Of course they bloody want him._ Sandor was a soldier. He knew nothing else. He was a damned fine one, too, if his career with the Lannisters was any indication. His name was known throughout the Seven Kingdoms as one of the most formidable fighters in Westeros. That, and he had maintained his positions for the majority of his career. She knew he had been given significant responsibility during the Blackwater, though he still refused to speak of that night.

"Show himself to be loyal."

"He's my shield," she said lowly. "Robb can't just take him into his army without my leave."

"Lenna," her brother said with a note of cajoling that almost made her angry. "You must understand that he has to prove himself in some way. He cannot just go on as before. They don't know him as you do, even as I do."

It wasn't a satisfactory answer, and Lenna hated that her brother was right. Of course they didn't trust him, she should be thanking the gods that they hadn't dragged him out into the muddy courtyard and beheaded him that afternoon. At least Robb was giving him a chance, even if she felt the injustice of it like a blow.

"And King Robb has already decided how he wishes to use him?" she asked quietly.

"That is to be determined," Wendel said. "We are to all meet with the king's small council tonight. After dinner."

She nodded. She felt she had gotten away with giving very few answers, probably because they were too concerned for her. She turned from him and took up the pen as she stretched the parchment out over the smooth stone. Wendel paced as she wrote, the only sounds in the room his footfalls and the scratch of the nip on the paper. When she was done, she handed him what she had written.

 _Dearest Papa,_

 _I live. Due to the efforts of Sandor Clegane, my shield, I am delivered safe to Wendel in Riverrun. I understand that you owe him something for his loyalty, and I beg you to give it to him. It is my only wish._

 _My love to you all, and I ardently hope to be with you in White Harbor as soon as may be._

 _Your affectionate daughter,_

 _Lenna Manderly_

Wendel read the parchment and sucked in a breath, shaking his head emphatically even as the color drained from his cheeks. "Lenna, I know Father promised him-"

Anger made her vision flash white. So, her brothers knew what their father had said to Sandor that afternoon in White Harbor, pulling him close and whispering so urgently, and she'd had no idea, not for years. It made her furious.

"Of course you do," she scoffed. "You all knew. You all knew before I did."

Wendel's eyes were full of sympathy as he looked at her, and she felt cut to the quick.

"Now isn't the time," Wendel said quietly. "They don't trust him, Lenna, or you. Not yet, not fully. You've been in King's Landing for ten years. Even if he has brought you here, which was a sound decision, his reputation is black as the seven hells and not likely to be overcome soon."

"I suppose my reputation is tarnished now, too?" she asked flatly. "After all, I was _left_ in King's Landing for ten years." She stood and went back to the window, the darkness of the night like to fill her lungs and choke her. "I did things I am not proud of, but no one did anything to get me out. I have been a hostage for the past year. A hostage, Wendel," she hissed as she turned to him, "just like Wylis. I may have kept my rooms, my fine clothes, but I was a prisoner. Was I supposed to make my way back on my own, brother? Was I supposed to stand against the Lannisters?"

"Lenna, I'm sorry," he said desolately. "We didn't know what to do."

"You're sorry? You should be," she fired back, so tired she no longer cared. "You and Father and Wylis. You have no idea what it was like, Wendel. And this is my one chance at some mote of happiness, and you're telling me to wait? I've spent a decade waiting. Waiting for someone, anyone, to help me. Only one person did, and you're telling me that I'm to care what others think of him?"

"Lenna, you're talking about a _marriage_ to the fucking _Hound_." Wendel's face had gone an unflattering puce as he tried to control himself, spluttering and spitting like a bulldog.

"He isn't the Hound," she whispered, feeling entirely stripped. "Not with me."

"Regardless, sister," her brother retorted, spirit back in his face, "you will have to wait for Father's reply." Wendel had the grace to stop himself and bit his tongue. "Forgive me, Lenna. Of course you deserve to have your wishes honored. If it is truly what you want. But I beg you, act with prudence."

She laughed drily. Prudence. She had lived her whole life with prudence, and it had gotten her nowhere, just stranded in King's Landing for years on end. She'd often wondered what might have happened if she hadn't been so affable, so pleasing and amenable. Would Cersei have sent her home after a year or two? She would never know. She had played her limited hand cautiously, maximizing her sustainability. At least it had given her Sandor.

"You will not object?" she asked stiffly, cocking her head wearily at her brother.

"No," he replied. "My hesitation has nothing to do with Clegane himself, sister. I will be the first to admit that I always liked him. Once I got over his face, and that reputation." She scowled. "We've all known for years," he continued softly. "We all saw how he treated you in White Harbor, how he cared for you in Winterfell. Father did make a promise, but are you sure you wish to bind yourself to him? He has kept you safe, yes, but once it is done, you can't undo it. Being tied to him carries great risk."

Lenna shut her eyes against the world. "Probably."

"Then can't you see that marrying him would be folly? I want you to be happy-"

"I love him, Wendel," she said, pinching the bridge of her nose. "I will not be happy unless I am with him."

"Don't be foolish," Wendel said harshly. "You're talking like a daft girl."

"Don't you dare," she bit out lowly, her eyes burning into his. "Don't you dare talk to me like a foolish child. I am not a maid of fourteen anymore, and I know my own damn mind. If Father consents there will be nothing that keeps me from him. Do you understand?"

Wendel was taken aback, clearly not expecting Lenna to speak to him in such a way. She didn't care. She'd been batted about like a plaything for far too long to brook such treatment from one of the people who was supposed to care for her, to protect her.

 _He failed_ , she thought bitterly. And it was true, much to her sorrow.

"I beg your forgiveness," he said softly, having taken a dozen deep breaths. When she looked at him again, there was genuine contrition in his face. "I cannot tell you, sister, how happy I was to know that you were alive, and to know that you were with him. After that news, I never doubted that I'd see you again."

She decided to forgive him and accept that his objections stemmed from brotherly concern. He simply didn't know her well enough anymore to really know what was best for her, and added to this was his own ever-present fear. He must be just as worried as she was, his thoughts constantly on protecting his family, and now that included her again. She managed to smile weakly, a tremulous, fleeting thing.

"Will you come to dinner?" he asked. She shook her head mutely.

"I am tired," she said. "I would stay here."

"Very well," he replied. "A tray will be brought up for you. But after dinner, you are expected in the small council chamber. I will come for you then."

Wendel took the parchment and rolled it carefully before letting himself out of her room. Lenna should have gone back to sleep, but she sat and just stared at the floor, her mind such a jumble that no clear thoughts formed.

Another knock. She sat up abruptly, panic streaking through her like a volley of arrows. She looked around frantically, trying very hard to remember where she was. It took long moments and the appearance of her brother to land on Riverrun, her brain not quite having caught up. It was discombobulating to say the least.

A tray sat on the little dressing table, its contents cold, and Wendel eyed it unhappily. She knew she needed to eat, but in her defense she had no idea that the tray had been delivered. She must have been heavily asleep indeed.

"You are wanted," Wendel said simply. "Are you able?"

She nodded and rose, linking her arm in his as she suppressed a yawn.

He led her back through the godswood, now starlit and warmed by the thrum of crickets. In the Great Hall, they passed the table where she'd seen Robb Stark earlier that day, darting through a side door and starting to climb a narrow flight of stairs.

"Where are we going?" she asked, winded and leaning heavily on the slender railing that wrapped around the outside of the risers.

"Small council meeting," he replied, wheezing as he mounted the last few stairs.

He led her through another door into a close room with long table surrounded with chairs. A few people had already filtered into the room. Wendel went to a specific seat with long practice and without thinking. It was clear to her that it was his place.

"Are you on the council?" she asked, sitting next to him in the offered chair. Her back hurt and her eyes were dry, feeling as though they had grown their own hair.

"Master of Coin, and Master of Ships while Wylis is imprisoned," he supplied. "There were quite a few who disliked two Manderlys, but it was King Robb's decision."

Lenna swelled with pride, smiling at her elder brother unabashedly.

"And you, my lord?" she asked, surprising the other occupant of the room. He was a rugged man of later years, perhaps her father's age, and he was looking at her as if trying to read her character in her face. The eyes that looked back at hers were almost the same blue as King Robb's, as Catelyn Stark's, and his steel grey hair was still full. It curled around his eyes, startling silver in contrast with his dark scaled plate. A large fish was emblazoned on his black-clad breast.

"Hand of the King," he said gruffly. "Never thought I'd see such a day, but here we are."

"Oh," Wendel said absently. "Lenna, this is Brynden Tully. This is my sister, Lady Helenna Manderly."

"Ah, yes, the damsel in distress," Brynden replied, but his voice was indulgent instead of derisive. "They'll be writing songs about you, you know. But, you are home now, I suppose."

Lenna smiled at him and one bushy brow twitched back at her. Robb entered with two blustering men wagging their tongues at him, brows dark and cheeks red. Cat Stark was trailing at their heels with an expression of barely controlled exasperation, followed by a slender young woman Lenna had never seen before, but whose face was schooled into the picture of forbearance. She knew that look all too well, she thought wryly, rising when her brother and the Blackfish did, feeling a little dizzy and wishing she had eaten something.

Then Sandor was there, standing at the end of the table flanked by two guards. She almost went to him, her brother's hand on her arm staying what must have been a physical start on her part. He looked a little better, probably just as she did. He'd bathed and shaved, the skin of his cheek and neck smooth, his hair still slightly damp as it fell in waves to his shoulders. It made him look younger. They'd somewhere found clothes almost big enough to fit him, though she suspected that the trousers he had tucked into his boots were too short. The tunic was blue, and his jerkin a dark gray leather. He did not look like someone who had spent the evening languishing in a dungeon, and some of the iron in her heart fell away.

His eyes immediately met hers across the room, full to brimming as he looked at her. She was sure she looked the same as she was overcome with relief. Neither knew what to do, that much as clear. He nodded stiffly and she returned it, her throat thick.

"Sandor Clegane," Robb said, pulling his attention away. Sandor stood to his full height, shoulders thrust back and chin slightly raised. She suspected he seemed rather fearsome to the rest of them, even to men like Greatjohn Umber and Rickard Karstark, both of whom looked at him in hostile fascination. "You have brought Lady Helenna back to us. You have our thanks."

"What use is thanking the dog," Karstark grumbled. "Take him out back and slit his throat, that's what I say."

"He returned my sister to me at his own peril," Wendel said, steel in the gray flecks of his eyes. "I am grateful to him."

"He's still a Lannister dog," Umber replied, leaning back nonchalantly in his chair. "Have we gathered here to decide what to do with him?"

"Not exactly," Robb said, leaning forward. "I have already decided what I'm going to do." The other lords swivelled their heads to look at him. Lenna did, too, her breath lodging in the hollow of her throat. She felt like her blood was full of bubbles and it made her short of breath. "He will join us as a strategist and will have his own command in our armies."

"Robb-" his mother protested, and Lenna bit her tongue against the blame she wished to cast.

"Your grace?" Sandor said, openly astonished.

"You are an experienced fighter, Clegane," Robb said, his gaze direct. "I have no reason to believe that you will turn on me."

"He turned on Joffrey," Karstark barked. "He turned on his king."

"As Lady Helenna pointed out to me earlier, my lord, we all did," Robb returned. "How can we fault him for turning his back on that monster, a false king if ever there was one?"

Karstark did not reply, but he did sit back in his seat.

Umber turned on him now, sitting forward. "You fought for the Lannisters-"

"I fought for my liege lord, just like you are now," Sandor replied stoically. "You'd like to believe that you'd choose your King in the North under any circumstances, but you wouldn't. You were raised on honor, weren't you? And honor binds you to your liege."

"Then you have none to turn your back on them," Umber spat. "Even if they are Lannisters."

"You put stock in vows, don't you, my lord?" Sandor asked, eyes glittering dangerously. Umber narrowed his gaze and grunted. "I've only made one. I had to turn on them to keep it," Sandor said, and Lenna did not miss how he cut his eyes at her.

"What kind of vow was that?" the old lord said, not bothering to mask the mocking in his tone.

"I am sworn-shield to Lady Helenna. They threatened her. I kept her safe from them. I will do as she bids me."

He looked at her openly then, and the ferocity in his gaze seemed to make the air thicker, harder to breathe. _By the gods,_ she thought, her brain grasping fingerlessly at such a promise.

"Lady Helenna," Robb said, her focus sharpening on him. "I know we spoke at length on this subject earlier, but to reiterate it to my councillors, do you trust this man?"

"With my life," she replied earnestly, turning her full gaze on the young King. "I owe everything to him. He-"

"I explained everything already, Len-my lady," Sandor said, and she looked to him again. She inhaled slowly through her nose, her chest expanding to strain the borrowed gown, the bodice suddenly tight. "You don't have to tell them."

She could do nothing but look back at him and hope he could see the gratitude in her face.

"I don't trust him," Umber said lowly. "Once a Lannister dog, always a Lannister dog."

"I do," Brynden Tully said suddenly. "And even if I didn't, what choice do we have? Do you believe Lady Helenna is their servant?"

Robb levelled his gaze at her and she looked back at him warily.

"No," he replied tightly. "I do not believe Lady Helenna would have run if she was their servant. She would have stayed in King's Landing."

"Why didn't she come before?" Umber barked.

"That is my fault," Wendel said abruptly. "Mine and my father's. Clegane tried, years ago, to convince us to keep her when she was sent home for a visit. We refused, believing that by sending her back we were preserving ourselves. We have a complicated history with the Lannisters, you see, a long story that I'm happy to tell if needed. But, mark my words, Lenna didn't want to be there any more than we wished her to be. No one could have foreseen where we would be now. No one."

Lenna looked at her brother gratefully, not missing the glint in his eyes.

"If my word is not enough," she said quietly. "Let our actions prove our loyalty. We know them better than you all. Let us help you."

Sandor XLV

She looked at him imploringly. He nodded.

"I accept your offer, with my lady's leave," he ground out, looking to Robb Stark. "What did you have in mind, your grace?"

Robb gestured to the maps on the table.

"We are at a bit of a stalemate," the young king said embarrassedly. "We have not engaged with more than a raiding party in weeks, not since the disaster at the Stone Mill."

"Your grace?"

"I had planned a way to take out their vanguard, but it was not successful." They both knew that Gregor Clegane commanded Tywin's vanguard, a formidable faction of mounted men. Sandor wasn't surprised that they hadn't been successful. His brother was a brute, what acute faculties he possessed dedicated to one thing alone, and that was strategy. Sandor fancied himself a better fighter than his brother. He was smaller, quicker, and for his size, just as powerful. He also believed he was just as smart, if not smarter, than Gregor. They were more alike than he cared for. He would kill him, he'd kill him and bring her his head.

"Where?" he asked, looking carefully at the map and pushing away the vengeful tide. "Here?" He indicated the Green Fork. He wished he'd heard more of the Northern movements of the last few weeks. He'd been so wrapped up in preparing for a siege that he'd allowed the information to pass in one ear and out the other, never dreaming he'd need to use it.

"No, here," Robb said, pointing to the Red Fork. "Weeks past now, just before the Blackwater. I was hoping to take King's Landing myself, to open a corridor south. I would still try it. We had meant to draw your brother's forces into our territory."

"Surround him, rout them out," Sandor replied, nodding. "Sound idea. What happened?"

"We didn't give him enough time," Robb supplied, his terse tone drawing Sandor's attention to his face. The boy looked annoyed, and Sandor wanted to know why. "It was a risk, letting him draw deeper into our territory. The idea was to lure them far enough that we could surround them on all sides. Unfortunately, my uncle Edmure got nervous and attacked prematurely."

"But you won the skirmish?" Sandor asked, perplexed.

"Yes," Robb replied, "and no. It was technically a victory. We drove them back, they retreated to Harrenhal, but we were not able to destroy them."

"You need a new plan," Sandor said lowly, flicking his gaze to Lenna. He felt odd with her there, watching and listening as he did what he did best. She'd seen him fight once or twice, but she'd never been present in meetings of this kind. It made him feel self-conscious even though she was practically glowing at him.

"Aye," Robb replied. "Do you have any ideas?"

"Perhaps a beginning, but I do not know how sensible it is," he replied, his eyes going to the tactical maps strewn across the table. "Can I look closer?"

Robb Stark nodded, and Sandor leaned over the table. He was not blind to the huffing of the other lords, only Manderly and Lenna sitting quietly, observing him.

"What are you doing?" Catelyn demanded, turning toward her son. He rejected the urge to snarl at her. "He's one of them, he's-"

"He's in our Keep, mother. I don't think he has any secret means to send our plans to them. Do you, Clegane?" The forbearance in Robb Stark's voice gave him pause. Something was not sitting well between mother and son. Sandor wondered what it was. He raised his lone brow at Lady Stark in reply.

She took a step back, anger evident in the harsh lines of her face. She looked as if she'd been carved from wood, one of those queer faces on the Northmen's weirwood trees, her eyes full of disdain.

Sandor turned his attention to the maps spread out on the table. The Starks had already taken most of the Riverlands and everything to the North. The map that took up most of the table was littered with colored chips representing troops, all closely clustered around the Trident and to the south. Riverrun was not far from their southern front, something that made him wary.

"We came through here," he said, tracing his finger along the River Road. "Quiet for the most part, but we were going through the forest. Avoided the roads. But here," he said, touching Maidenpool, "still swarming with Lannister men."

Robb nodded. "They've fallen back to regroup, same as we have."

"Tywin and my brother are at Harrenhal," Sandor said. "At least, that's what the talkers we bumped into said."

"Yes and no," Robb replied. "Your brother was left in charge. Tywin went to King's Landing. Things quieted for a time after the siege in the capital, but they seem to be rallying again. We've had increased reports of raids."

"Numbers?" he asked gruffly. "Roughly."

"Five thousand still in Harrenhal by our estimation. Possibly more encamped to the south."

"A good scout could find out," Sandor grunted. "And you?"

"Robb," Catelyn protested, pleading in her voice as she leaned toward him. Robb Stark held up his hand to silence her.

"Comparable," he replied, "but our ability to call in reinforcements is dwindling. The Mountain is still sitting there, but I doubt we'll tempt him back here again."

He grunted. "No, he would not fall for the same trick twice. He's stupid, but not when it comes to this."

"No," Lenna said, and Sandor looked up in surprise. "Neither he nor Tywin would fall for such a ruse again. But perhaps there is another way."

Sandor clenched his fists and pursed his lips. "What would you suggest then, my lady?"

"Bait him like a fish," she supplied. "Both of them."

"Explain," Robb said, blue eyes troubled.

"He's leading raiding parties, correct?" she said, rising from her seat. Her brother was looking at her with horror mixed with wonder. "We heard of them from passersby, the Mountain and his men on the River Road, still in the vicinity of Stone Mill."

"Aye," the king replied.

"The way I see it, you have two advantages. First, Tywin Lannister is now having to focus on two fronts: you here in the Riverlands, and Stannis on the seas and to the southeast. He is having to split his resources, so he will not wish to engage a large faction while prioritizing the defense of King's Landing. This is no longer a feud," she said, darting her eyes at Lady Stark. "This is a war for a throne. He would hold it at all costs. The second advantage is no one yet knows that Clegane and I are here. For now, you can use what we know without their knowledge. Instead of a large engagement, choose a small one, or at least a targeted one. Is the Mountain's band worth it to you?"

"Without question," Brynden Tully said from his chair. The Blackfish's face was as dark as his scaled plate. "He has been wreaking havoc on the Riverlands for over a year, attacking our folk."

"Beric Dondarrion had been sent after him," Lenna said carefully. "What has become of him?"

"Killed at the Mummer's Ford," Wendel supplied.

"I am sorry to hear it,' Lenna replied. "He was a good man, and an honorable knight. The rest of his band? Wasn't Thoros of Myr with him?"

"Vanished," Cat Stark said, turning to face her. "Neither hide nor hair has been reported."

Lenna looked at Sandor quizzically, confusion written on her face.

"That makes no sense," he said. "There is nowhere for them to go without being seen. They're somewhere between here and Harrenhal, wouldn't you think?"

Cat Stark shrugged and Robb looked a bit peevish. Sandor looked at them both in disbelief.

"No one thought to search them out?" Lenna asked. "Thoros of Myr would be an asset, any man who had first hand knowledge of the Mountain should be high on your list of people to find."

"There are reports of a small band of marauders." Sandor didn't recognize the quiet voice, his attention drawn to the slender young woman standing at Robb Stark's shoulder. He'd never seen her before, and this was the first time she'd spoken. Like Lenna, she had a long face, but she wasn't nearly as tall, her straight black hair bound up sensibly on the back of her head, a few pieces framing her face. Her eyes were large and so dark as to appear black.

"Where?" Sandor asked.

"Between here and Harrenhal, as you said. I've seen them."

"My apologies," Robb Stark said quietly, looking sheepish. "My wife, Talisa."

"Where did you see them?" Lenna asked, leaning forward in her chair.

"I have been at work here for quite some time. These marauders continue to engage with Lannister forces, their raiding parties in particular. I believe they are on the hunt for your Mountain."

"You don't know that," Robb said lowly, the undercurrents of his voice stormy.

Her dark brows rose in challenge. "And you don't know that they aren't." She turned her attention back to Sandor and Lenna. "They carry no banners. But they leave Stark forces alone. At least they have until recently."

"What has happened?" Lenna asked.

Talisa's nostrils flared and Sandor noted that Robb was looking everywhere but at his wife. "They have taken the part of the smallfolk. They push back raiders from all sides."

"You can't be ordering raids," Lenna said, her voice rising in anger.

"No," Robb barked back, "but you know how men can be." He looked at Sandor in supplication and he couldn't help but let out a gruff breath.

Sandor thought a long moment before he spoke.

"Your grace," he said carefully, "I think you need to talk to these men."

"They will not respond to a summons," Robb bit out.

"Have you tried?" Lenna asked abruptly.

Robb looked abashed, color pinking his cheeks. "No."

"Then you must try," she said firmly. "See if they respond. What you do next will depend on the outcome."

"My lady is right," Sandor said, looking at Robb. "It would be foolish to plan something without good information. He won't continue to bite if we don't bait him well the next time. I say we wait."

"We watch and we wait," Lenna said softly, and he couldn't help but look back at her. When had that phrase become their words?

"And what of you, Lady Helenna," Cat Stark said suddenly. "What do we say about you?"

"Nothing," Sandor replied quickly. "As far as they are concerned, Lenna is still unaccounted for. We both are."

"Why not let others know?" Cat asked. "Surely, your family-"

"They have been informed," Lenna replied. "But keeping my whereabouts quiet, for the time being, is in everyone's best interest."

"Why?"

"Because they are looking for me," Lenna said flatly.

"There were search parties sent out," Sandor said. "They want her back."

"All due respect, but Lady Helenna isn't an heiress, she isn't the daughter of a Lord Paramount. Her father is rich, to be sure, but all this trouble over-"

"Cersei loves her," Sandor growled. "That, and she's too useful to them."

"She's a tutor," Cat said derisively. Sandor decided then and there that he did not like Lady Stark.

"They believe me loyal," Lenna said. "I have never proven to be anything else. I believe, and Clegane and my brother may agree with me, that I have been kept in King's Landing all these years for one purpose alone. To be used as a proxy when such a time comes when Tywin Lannister wants to use my family's naval power."

"You are Lady of White Harbor in name only," Cat ground out.

"Tywin sought to marry me to Tyrion and Jaime Lannister," Lenna replied, "with the intention of making me Lady of Casterly Rock. Explain to me why he would want such a thing when the hatred between he and my father is so thick? The feud with my family is a long one, Lady Stark, and one that even I was unaware of until my last visit home. Tywin is plotting to take the Iron Throne, has been for years, and I was being groomed to take possession of White Harbor once my father and brothers had been either killed or attainted."

"But now-" Cat interrupted.

"This engagement is but a fly in his ointment," Lenna replied stolidly. "They believe me to be loyal, and they believe me to be important for their endgame. They believe me naive enough to do their bidding, have brought me close to them. If you let my whereabouts be known too soon, you will ruin your chances to use me to your advantage. Say nothing until you have talked to these bannerless men."

"She could be an intermediary," Brynden Tully said abruptly. "She was close to the queen, yes? She's ours, but they believe her to be theirs. That could be useful. It will be useful. But not if we tell them where she is. Not right now. They are right, and I've been trying to tell you the same thing. Now is the time to wait. We cannot plan a course of action without more information. These bannerless men might do the trick, they might not. But as surely as they are consolidating their forces, so must we. We are beginning to splinter, and you know it."

Sandor didn't know why everyone was suddenly staring at the table, and he looked to Lenna to find the same expression of confusion on her face.

"That business is settled," Cat Stark said, her voice pitched low. "Edmure will take Robb's place. It has been agreed."

"It has weakened us with the Freys. Period," Brynden said. "And their bannermen. You brokered an alliance between House Frey and House Stark, not between House Frey and House Tully. This young man here understands it, a vow is a vow." He nodded to Sandor, and he felt his cheek heat, casting his hair forward across his face to avoid their scrutiny. "But, as you say, it is done."

"And I'd not undo it," Robb barked. Sandor wished he knew what they were talking about. He was having a hard enough time following their battle plans, let alone the family troubles that were further miring them in confusion and emotion. The young king rose from his chair. "I will send out runners at dawn, see if we can track down these men. If we can, perhaps we can bring them to our side. Perhaps."

"And if we can't?" the Blackfish asked. "Then what?"

Sandor took a deep breath, looking at Lenna. She gazed steadily back at him, that deadened acceptance already dulling her eyes. With a barely perceptible inclination of her head, she gave him what he needed.

"Then I will find him myself," he said at last, looking at Robb and clenching his teeth. "I will hunt him down and bring you his head."

"Alone?"

"If need be," he rasped.

Robb Stark nodded. "Until then, you'll be given a command and a contingent of men to train. Hand to hand, I should think. You'll be expected to meet with me and my commanders daily, and you'll continue to be housed in the barracks. You'll take your meals in the hall with the rest of us."

"Your grace," he said, inclining his head. He could not muster words to express his thanks.

"Lady Helenna, you will attend the queen and my mother, and I would like you to be present at our small council meetings going forward. I would ask, however, that you confine yourself to the Keep itself. We have no reason to believe we have Lannister eyes among us, but it would be best to keep your presence here as quiet as possible until we decide what to do with you."

"Of course, your grace," she said quietly. "I understand."

"Now," Robb said, his face strained with fatigue. "I suggest we adjourn and get some rest."

The others rose to leave, slipping out of the little room in groups of two or three, Robb and his young wife slipping their arms around each other as they went. Sandor's guards dispersed, and he took a deep breath, their departure like the loosening of bonds. He hadn't been able to tear his eyes from Lenna. She still sat beside her brother's chair, her hands folded in her lap as she gazed back at him. Wendel Manderly was watching them both with understanding, and though he drew in a breath as if to speak, he exited the room without a word, leaving them alone.

As soon as the door was closed, Sandor crossed to her in two strides, just in time to wrap her against him as she threw her arms around his neck. She tilted her face to him and he found her mouth with his without pause, her lips parting against him as he kissed her, feeling as if he was drawing breath from her lungs.

"You are well?" he asked, drawing away from her. "Your brother-"

"I'm fine," she answered quickly, "just worried about you."

He passed his hand over her cheek. "You should go. Before they notice."

"It won't matter, not for long," she said quietly, looking up at him from beneath her lashes in hesitation.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"I wrote my father," she replied, taking a step back and looking fully into his face. "I have asked him to keep his promise to you."

Just like that, the wind fled from his lungs, leaving him feeling flattened. He knew his mouth had fallen open, that he was gaping at her like a fish. She was still looking up at him, her expression beginning to shift from careful neutrality to hurt and concern. Her eyes narrowed almost unnoticeably, and she cast them down.

His heart ricocheted against his ribs as he lifted his hand to tilt her chin upwards again.

"And if he agrees?" he asked, his voice barely audible, a whisper of gravel.

She shook her head, still not looking at him. "Perhaps my brother is right."

"What do you mean?" he asked, fear and sorrow clutching at his windpipe.

"He said it was foolish, too dangerous-"

"Aye, it would be dangerous, Lenna," he replied. He wanted to shout _but I don't care_. Wendel was right. Being tied to him would be a millstone around her neck, potentially even a death sentence in the wrong situation. But he didn't care. Not any more. "But do you think it foolish?"

"No," she said, her voice small and almost scared.

"Me either," he said quietly. "It won't be easy. Your father and brother, that's one thing. The rest of these Northerners…"

"I'll handle them," she replied quickly, finally turning her eyes to his, large and solemn and full of light. "That is, if you agree."

"Aye," he said, feeling his lips quirk. "Of course I do. Though I fear you'll regret it."

"Never," she whispered harshly. He bent to her again, cradling her head in his hands, marvelling again over her softness and warmth against him. Once, he would have questioned her, would have denied her out of hand, pushed her away for her own good, but he couldn't say no to her, not now, not anymore.

"You should go," he said quietly, pulling away. She smiled gently and rose again to press her mouth to his before hastening to the doorway, slipping out and down the staircase.

He watched her go with a calm in his breast that he didn't expect. An unlooked for peace where there had just been anger and fear before. Peace, and a ferocious beating of white feathers that made his heart speed and his breath come deep.

Hope.

A/N: This took longer to get out than I anticipated. Thank you for all the well wishes on my move. It had been an unmitigated disaster, but the light is at the end of the tunnel. Just a heads up, I will probably be taking a brief hiatus after the next chapter. Don't worry, there is plenty in it to keep you satisfied for a bit, but I will be travelling abroad for three weeks and not able to spend as much time on this as I might wish to!

As always, thank you for your kind comments, favorites, and follows. They are real pick me ups.

So- any thoughts on where this is going? Got a few big surprises up my sleeve! I love to hear your ideas and predictions. Keep in mind, I take them all to heart! I have a general outline of where we are headed, but always open to input and heading in another direction, hence recent events.

Reviews are love! Leave one! Please!


	46. Chapter 46

Lenna LXVI

She was staring out the window of her room when the knock came. She started, her brow furrowed, wondering who would be looking for her at this time of day. It was still quite early, her breakfast tray still on the little desk she had insisted be brought into her chamber. It was half the size of the one she had in King's Landing, but it dominated the small space, already covered in books and parchments pilfered from Riverrun's respectable library.

She'd found respite in those modest stacks in the week since their arrival, carrying books back to her room to pore over in an effort to keep her movements minimal and her mind occupied. She rarely left her rooms except to attend small council meetings, though she did regularly sit with the young queen and Cat Stark. Lenna had been more than a little flabbergasted to learn that the doe-eyed girl from the small council meeting was her new queen. Though Lenna dreaded being alone with stony-eyed Cat Stark, she rather enjoyed Talisa's company. The first day she'd been nervous as she wondered what on earth they would talk about. She shouldn't have worried. Talisa Stark talked plenty, but she wasn't idle. She and Lenna rolled massive amounts of bandages, sorted and processed herbs brought from the gardens and the woods around the castle, Talisa insistent on overseeing the medical stores of her husband's company herself.

Lenna was grateful for the occupation. Studying was a joy, but she found herself often dreamy as she sat at the little desk and looked out onto the rolling hills of the Riverlands. She was anxious and disquieted when left alone, which was most of the time, always wondering where he was and what he was doing. She'd only seen him at evening meals and during meetings, never finding another moment to speak with him alone. If the way he looked at her across the dinner table was any indication, all forlorn and dark-eyed, he was feeling the strain of it, too.

The knock was a welcome distraction. She went to the door as quickly as she could, eager to see if it would be her brother with a response from their father. She was expecting word from him any day, desperate to hear what he would say. She had been counting the days, knowing that it took a raven three or four days to reach White Harbor from the Riverlands, not to mention three or four on the way back. Even if her father had answered immediately, the earliest she could expect to hear was today or the next.

She flung the door open with great hope, but the face that greeted her on the other side was not her brother, but Talisa Stark. She looked faintly nervous, which Lenna thought strange. It was her Keep, and Lenna had never thought of herself as intimidating in any way.

"I am to visit the Lannister boys," she said softly, without any introduction. "I wondered if you might want to come."

Lenna looked at her with an open mouth. "Lannister boys?"

"Yes," she replied. "Willem and Martyn. They were taken a few weeks ago at the Stone Mill."

"Hostages," Lenna said flatly.

She nodded. "They were squires, but they are children yet, and I had thought it might be good for them to see you."

"Why?"

"Because you know their family," Talisa said quietly. "They are so afraid and unhappy, my lady."

"Lenna," she said distractedly. "Please. And yes, I will come."

Talisa smiled a little more certainly and moved aside so they could walk together. She led her through the halls confidently, and Lenna tried to remember what she'd heard of her quiet companion. A noblewoman of Volantis, a healer who had met Robb working in the aftermath of battle, not caring who it was she was ministering to, Lannister or Stark.

The boys were being held in a small cell. At least it had a real bed, much to Lenna's relief. She nearly cried when she saw them, the weak light from the high dungeon window setting their Lannister curls aglow. The elder looked so like Tommen that she was taken aback. Talisa had brought with her a basket of materials, and drew Martyn to her to inspect a wound on his hand.

"Has it been giving you pain?"

"No," he answered quietly, eyes like beryls looking to Lenna. "Who is that?"

"I'm Helenna Manderly," she replied, stepping forward. "I know your brother, I believe."

"Lancel?" the younger one said. They were boys, perhaps between twelve and fourteen, but young enough to have the look of childhood about them. The little one had been sitting on the bed with his arms wrapped around his knees, but his head went up with his question.

"Yes," Lenna said, coming closer. "May I sit?" The boy nodded and made room for her, and she had to remind herself that she shouldn't reach a hand out to smooth those curls. He looked so young, eyes big and staring as he looked up at her warily, and she cringed internally to realize that Sandor would have been this lad's age when he'd entered the Lannister army. It made her feel ill. "I did not know him well, I'm afraid," she said quietly. "I knew your cousins very well, though. And I have been to Lannisport before."

"You have?" he asked. She smiled, his interest clearly piqued. She remembered how it was when she had gone to King's Landing, so keen to talk about her home and having no one there to listen.

"A long time ago now, but yes. I went to Casterly Rock with the queen once. It is a beautiful place."

"You're one of them, though?" the elder said, not paying any attention to Talisa as she washed his wound and bound it up again.

"My father is Lord Manderly," she replied. "I have been your cousin's lady-in-waiting for ten years. I was...ransomed back." She darted a glance at Talisa Stark. The queen arched a slender brow but did not gainsay her.

Martyn looked at her suspiciously, but he must have decided to accept her lack of definitive answer. "We are waiting to be ransomed."

"Do you have everything you need?" she asked, suddenly concerned. The cell was small and dank. There was a tray with two empty plates on it, a bucket of water with a ladle. "Are you warm enough, do you have enough blankets?"

Martyn nodded. "We're just…"

"What?"

"Bored," he replied. "There's nothing for us to do. We just sit here."

Lenna looked at Talisa. She shrugged. "Let me see what I can do. If I can bring you books, at least."

"That would be nice," Martyn said, a little smile on his face, as if he'd forgotten how to do it.

Talisa finished her task and there was no excuse for them to stay. She collected her basket and together they bid the boys goodbye. Lenna tried to ignore the sound of the iron door closing behind them with a final thud.

They walked silently, but instead of heading back into the Keep, they found themselves walking in the godswood. Lenna had been right. It was a beautiful place, and she marveled at how natural it seemed. The gardens in King's Landing, even in White Harbor, were formal affairs with terraces and organized beds of carefully selected flora. This was like a little piece of the countryside plopped down inside the castle walls.

"This is a beautiful place," she observed, looking at Talisa. The queen smiled back at her.

"You were very kind," she said abruptly. "To those boys. They needed to hear some kindness."

"They're still children," she replied, thinking suddenly of Myrcella, of her brothers, when they had all been young. Even Joffrey had been receptive to love when he was little, and it wasn't uncommon for her to remember the feel of his warm little body in her lap and wonder where it had gone so badly. "They think they are men, but they aren't."

"Your answer, when they asked who you were," Talisa pressed, stopping to look at her companion. "You didn't tell them either way."

Lenna swallowed hard and wondered how much she dared to say. "If they're ransomed back, isn't better for us if they think I'm still loyal?"

"Perhaps," Talisa asked, looking at Lenna from the corner of her eye.

"My only possible use to you all is as an intermediary. It is a tricky line to toe."

"You care for the Lannisters," Talisa said suddenly. "Don't you?"

"Against my better judgement," she said thickly. "I don't know how to explain it. Tyrion and Jaime were kind to me, as was Cersei, in her way. I know they used me, in ways that I'm not even fully aware of, but I would press for a peaceful resolution to this madness. I would rather no one else die over this squabble. The queen once told me that women must be the weavers of peace. I don't know if she really believes that, but I do."

"Selfishness gets in the way. They all claim not to be governed by emotion, but what is honor but a feeling? The highborns make decisions based on what they want, not on what is right," Talisa offered, surprising Lenna. "I think I can assure you that we are in perfect agreement."

"And I always keep in mind something I heard Tywin Lannister say, of all people," she said with a humorless laugh. "Some battles are won with swords and spears, some with quills and ravens. It's about time we tried the latter instead of relying on the former."

The young queen looked back at her with keen intelligence and sympathy sparking in her eyes.

"I believe you are right," she said quietly. "These Northern lords are too married to their honor. It will be their end, if they aren't careful."

Lenna, of course, agreed. "I have heard much talk of honor and vengeance," she said carefully, not wishing to offend Talisa Stark. "But I have not heard much said in defense of the smallfolk. They are the victims here, no matter whose side they are on. When will someone think on them?"

The smile that twisted Talisa's lips was sad. "Never, I fear." She paused for a long moment. "I came to Westeros because I could not bear to stay in Volantis, not having grown up in a place where people were chattel. I swore I would never live in such a place again, nor would I bend to people simply because of their name or their money. And look where I am now."

Her laughter was bitter, and Lenna compulsively reached out to cover her hand where it lay on the handle of her basket.

"You are still doing good," Lenna insisted. "You are still helping those who cannot help themselves. Is that not why you came here?"

Talisa acknowledged this with a dip of her head, a long strand of dark hair falling forward.

"But I have still managed to somehow become a queen," she breathed. "And my marriage- my marriage has caused great upset and unhappiness."

"We cannot control where we love," Lenna replied quietly. "I know that as much as any."

The other woman's eyes scrunched in question and Lenna looked at the clouds as she pondered. The sky was a brilliant blue, so unlike the washed-out color of King's Landing, or even the cold skies of White Harbor. It was difficult for her to remember that there was a war being fought here, that she and this young woman were caught up in something outside of themselves. She struggled to accept that she was being hunted, even though she knew that reports of her betrothed were getting closer and closer to Riverrun.

"I will tell you," she said at last. "Only if you will not breathe a word of it to another soul. I would unburden myself."

Talisa's large dark eyes were fastened on hers, liquid like a hart's, but she drew Lenna along with her through the copses and groves, along the little gurgling stream. With little thought to anyone overhearing, or even the wisdom of such a torrent of words, Lenna told Talisa Stark everything. She started from the beginning, when she was a maid of fourteen or fifteen, friendless in the capital, and ended with their running from King's Landing. She was sure that she had shocked the young woman, her lips parted and her face full of concern. At some point she had reached a hand out and laid it on Lenna's arm.

"I will speak to no one about this unless you bid me," Talisa said. "I am so very sorry for what you have been through, my lady. I'm sure I had no idea. Not really."

Talisa's smile was tight, and Lenna did her best to return it. "There are more pressing concerns, I'm sure," she murmured, but Talisa shook her head.

"No," she replied quietly. "Nothing more pressing in my opinion. We are given one life. We should be allowed to live it, in whatever way we see fit."

Lenna impulsively bent forward and kissed the young queen on the cheek, trying to smile despite herself. Something binding and tight had loosened itself in her, and thought anxiety and worry still clouded her mind, she felt her burden eased, just as she had when she had told Jaime Lannister, when she'd told Tyrion. She couldn't explain why it had such an affect on her, telling the story, but she found herself clear-eyed and calm for the first time in weeks.

"You know," Lenna said quietly, "you never wished to be a queen, ran from such your whole life, but I don't think I've met anyone more suited to it."

Talisa colored, two spots of color blooming in her olive cheek. "Since you have made a confession," she said hesitantly, "I will make one of my own."

"You are with child," Lenna said with a lilt of laughter and a flash of dimple. "Aye, I know."

"How?" Talisa asked, her eyes again round as moons. "I haven't told anyone, not even Robb."

"I may not be a healer, your grace," Lenna said, "but I'm not blind either. You excuse yourself in the mornings and come back looking green, you can't abide certain foods at midday, and you carry yourself so carefully. I had thought you were merely graceful, much more graceful than I, but no. You are deliberate and cautious, like you are protecting something."

She colored even more darkly. "I want to tell them, but I wanted to be sure."

"All of my congratulations, your grace," Lenna said with a broad smile. "Tell him. He needs such happy news."

"Do you think the others-"

"Not that I have heard," Lenna replied, "but I do not see them often."

Talisa shot her a look of regret at this. "I do not like how they have kept you secreted away."

Lenna shrugged. "It isn't all bad," she replied. "I have been studying. Trying to find a solution to this fix."

"Have you heard of the new developments? The business with the Freys."

"But it is mended, is it not?" Lenna asked with a shake of her head. "Lord Edmure is to take Robb Stark's place as bridegroom, restoring the alliance."

Talisa's brow knotted and she looked down. "Yes, that's what we thought. But Frey has changed his terms."

"Whatever do you mean? He already agreed-"

"Do you think he cares? The North broke its contract, and now he is changing his terms. If we cannot meet them, he has threatened to break the trust altogether and pull his men from our armies."

Heaviness settled on her shoulders again, as real as any cloak or burden. Lenna reminded herself that she was just four and twenty, and she should not feel so very old as she did at that moment.

"What does he demand?" she asked with more calm than she felt.

"Harrenhal," Talisa said quietly. "He wants Robb to take it and turn it over to his control. He would have purview over the Trident."

With a great sigh, Lenna let out a breath. "Of course he would want that. Though he should know better than to want Harrenhal."

"Why?"

"It is simply too big," Lenna replied. "The lands that surround it are not capable of sustaining it when fully manned. And it takes an enormous force to keep it operating."

"It doesn't even matter," Talisa replied with a sharp exhalation. "How could we take it? We have good numbers, from what I have heard, but they have the stronger position. Tywin Lannister has pulled most of his forces to the south, leaving just the Mountain and his men, but the fortress itself is nearly impenetrable. Even with superior numbers it would be difficult if not impossible."

 _The Mountain_. Of course. Dogged at every step. A wash of cold horror came over her like a deluge, and she could see nothing but the brothers as they hacked away at each other at the Hand's Tourney so long ago. Loras Tyrell had been the catalyst that day, but there was something far darker, more dangerous that brought Sandor and his brother to death-blows. She had no doubt that they both meant to kill the other that day, and she had a flickering of a terrible, awful idea.

Reports had still been arriving of raiding parties throughout their territory on the River Road. Gregor Clegane was looking for his bride and his brother, the story of their flight from King's Landing still a scandal. She hated to hear the accounts at small council meetings, to hear how they had, in fact, been written into a ballad. Only the ballad was a tragedy, Lenna cast as the abducted maiden and Sandor as the villain. And her idea, terrible as it was, would put both of them into harm's way again.

"I can think of a way," Lenna said quietly. "But no one is going to like it. I don't like it."

They were both of them quiet as they returned to the Keep, Talisa in her own head as Lenna turned the idea that she'd been honing over in her mind like a stone in a river, smoothing it and rounding it until it was as polished as she could manage. It was a heavy thought, weighty and risky, but if wielded correctly it could solve two dilemmas at once.

When the knock came an hour before dinner, Lenna opened the door expecting to see Talisa or Cat Stark. Talisa was indeed there, but Lenna didn't anticipate the other figure standing behind her.

Sandor stood at the queen's shoulder looking decidedly nervous. Lenna's heart swelled that he should be there, that her friend should have brought him to her.

"I thought the two of you might like to talk," Talisa said quietly. "We'll see you both at the small council meeting after dinner."

With a wistful smile, the queen left them looking at each other awkwardly across Lenna's threshold. It took her a long moment to realize that he was still standing in full sight outside of her door.

"Please," she said quietly, "come in."

Sandor LXVI

"You told her?" he asked, taking two steps into her little room and halting in the middle of the floor. He didn't know how he felt about it, didn't have words to communicate the satisfaction and the worry that had come over him when Robb Stark's young wife had sought him out in the training yards the hour before. She had bid him change and come with her, and he'd barely had enough time to put on a clean set of clothes before she summoned him again.

Walking through the Keep with Talisa Stark had made him feel utterly naked. All eyes followed them as they made their way through the passageways, the queen wending on such a convoluted path that he had no idea where he was or where they were going. When she stopped in front of the nondescript chamber door, she looked up at him with a strange little smile and he knew, he just knew what lay on the other side.

Lenna answered it, a shawl spread across her shoulders and her hair tumbling around her ears. It had already grown out quite a bit, nearly brushing her shoulders. He hadn't seen her besides small council meetings, and they hadn't had another opportunity to speak alone. It had been an entire week, and in that time he had come to realize just how much he had come to rely on at least seeing her every day. He couldn't recall a single time he'd gone so long with so little contact, except perhaps the boar hunt that killed King Robert.

That the queen knew surprised him, he would not have thought Lenna would have confided in anyone save her brother. Wendel had been looking at him appraisingly for the past week, the portly lord's eyes often lingering with an expression that had nothing to do with Sandor's contributions to their meetings. He felt like he was on trial, every little gesture judged. He did, however, believe that he was passing muster, if Wyman's smirks and jokes were a sign.

"I did," Lenna replied, closing the door and drawing the shawl more tightly around her shoulders. "Are you angry with me?"

He turned to look at her, unable to stop himself from dragging his fingertips along her jaw and taking a step closer to her.

"No," he replied. "Surprised. Not angry."

She walked into him, wrapping her arms around his chest and leaning her cheek to his breast. He buried his nose in the top of her head, closing his eyes and inhaling her. She smelled like lavender and honey, like a balm. He no longer gave a shit that he felt foolish, drinking her in like that, still starving for every little scrap he could scrounge. He'd let that fear of appearing stupid cost him too dearly.

"I didn't think she'd bring you to me," Lenna said, pressing her sharp little chin into his breastbone so she could look up at him. "It was a kindness."

His mouth quirked ever so slightly at that as he drank in the sight of her face so close to his. With just a moment's hesitation he bent to her, strangely unsure. She smiled against his mouth, hands twining around his neck just as they always did and he let out a long breath through his nose, content.

She drew him to sit on the chest at the foot of her bed. They both eyed the mattress warily. He was expected at dinner and had no intention of drawing attention to himself if he should be late, distracted by what they could do in that bed. He let himself be coddled, Lenna bringing him a glass of wine, stoking the fire as she prattled away, interrogating him as he tried to answer her questions as best he could. He saw her nervousness for what it was, and it made him smile. She was just as unsettled by their separation as he was, necessary as it had been. He barely was able to formulate a response to her barrage before she lobbed another at him, her movements quick and almost jerky. When she passed him on the way to her desk to do gods knew what, he caught her by the wrist and drew her instead in his lap. He leaned against the bedpost, tucking her against him in a way that reminded him strongly of their meetings in King's Landing's library, enjoying the expansion of her ribs against his arm as she breathed. The frisson of disquiet in her limbs calmed and she finally relaxed against him.

"Have they been treating you well?" she asked at last, craning to see him and so close their noses almost touched.

"Aye," he replied. "Called the guards off, at least. You?"

She nodded. "I've been trying to keep myself busy. There has been much to think about, none of it cheerful." She kissed him briefly. "I've missed you."

"Aye," he replied, tightening his arms. "We've been trying to come up with some sort of plan. These Northerners are difficult."

She laughed. "We are rather stubborn. I have concocted an idea. You will not like it."

The mirth did not reach her eyes, they were troubled and dark, stormy like a sea-squall.

"Tell me," he said simply.

With each word, he felt weighted down, as if he was being pressed. He'd seen that done once, in the Black Cells, and it had made even him hurt with detached horror. They were trying to extract a confession, had spread the poor man out on his back on the stone floor, a heavy door placed on his chest. It had been loaded with heavy stones until the man confessed. Not that it mattered much, as he died anyway. Sandor felt like each sentence, clever as it was, was a weight of fifty pounds, and when she paused for a moment, he stopped her.

"No more, not right now," he said softly, cupping her cheek in his hand and trying to savor the feel of her skin. She nested her cheek against his palm and he felt the dimple in her cheek deepen for a moment.

He laid his lips against her hair and pulled her closer. He didn't want to talk. He didn't have anything in particular that he wanted to say, he certainly didn't want to address all that was wrong about her idea, but he had spent the better part of a week in a frustrated maelstrom of want and worry, unable to speak with her let alone touch her. He spoke how he did best, with his hands. Soft touches gave way to firmer stroking until she was astride him, her mouth parted above his as she thrust her fingers into his hair, his hands roaming greedily along the lines of her sides and grasping at her rear. He wished they had more time, was tempted to hike up her skirts and take her, especially when her hands moved to his waistband trailed against the skin below his navel, making him jerk upwards against her and wringing a pleased sound from her throat that was half giggle, half groan.

He nearly dropped her when the door opened unexpectedly. Lenna stiffened and pulled away from him quickly, coming to rest unsteadily on her feet, her eyes still dark and clouded, her lips and cheeks reddened. He knew he was breathing heavily, convinced that his own aspect wasn't dissimilar, but he made himself move with deliberation, rising from his seat and straightening to his full height to face the seething anger of Cat Stark.

She was standing frozen in the doorway, her hand that had pushed open the door still poised in the air as she gaped at them. Lenna straightened her skirts, folding her hands calmly in front of her as if they hadn't just been caught grinding against each other in what the lordlings might call a compromising situation. If he wasn't so furious himself, he might have found it funny.

Cat Stark didn't find it the least bit amusing, her face transforming from palest white to a most unflattering shade of puce in a matter of moments. She spluttered and spat, words seeming to die in her mouth, her hands grabbing fistfuls of her skirts in her fury.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded, her eyes vengeful and full of rage as she looked at Sandor. He hadn't succeeded in winning Lady Stark over, but at least she was able to look at him now. Previously, she hadn't been able to meet his eye. Now she was looking back at him with fire in her gaze.

"Lady Stark-" Lenna tried, stepping forward.

"I asked the Hound a question," she replied, raising a hand in an action he was sure infuriated Lenna. "What are you doing in Lady Helenna's rooms."

"What did it look like to you?" he retorted, fists clenching at his thighs, unable to keep himself from prodding her. She knew exactly what they were doing, he didn't see any reason to pretend that she didn't. More than that, he hated that she was speaking to them like errant children. Lenna's mouth was a thin line and the fierce expression in her eyes would have felled even him.

"I don't want to say what it looked like," Cat Stark snarled. "I can't imagine why Lady Helenna would tolerate such a gross liberty-"

"And I could ask why you felt it appropriate to barge into my personal rooms without even bothering to knock," Lenna barked back, her little fists tightened into balls so tight her knuckles had gone white. Fuck, but she was lovely when she was angry. "Common courtesy-"

"Common courtesy would prevent you from entertaining a man like this in your rooms, alone, while under my roof."

"Isn't your roof, my lady," Sandor replied, cocking his good brow at her, breathing slowly to contain his rage, nostrils flaring like a bull. "It's your brother's. While he is away, isn't it your son's?"

"You have my word that we will take this up with the king. Now," she spat out. "You should be taken out into the courtyard and flogged, and you, my lady," she turned the full brunt of that heated gaze on Lenna, "you should be ashamed of such. You are the maiden daughter of a lord, not some Southern whore."

 _Not a maiden, but never a whore._ He took a step forward in a way he fully intended to be menacing, perversely satisfied to see the flash of fear in Lady Stark's eyes as she drew back but half a step.

Lenna was surprising collected in the face of Cat Stark's rage. "You do wrong to speak to me so. I am not ashamed, Lady Stark. Not of him. Never of him."

Cat Stark spluttered again. "I must ask you to come with me. I was sent to fetch you to the small council, but-"

"Let's get it over with then," Sandor said, taking a step toward the door. To his surprise, Lenna came to stand beside him and slipped her hand into his.

"By all means," she replied, then gestured to Cat Stark to lead the way. The older woman looked back in what Sandor could only call shocked revulsion, taking in the sight of their joined hands with an open expression of disdain. Without a word, Lady Stark whirled away and prowled before them with her back rigid, the long auburn braid that fell down her back seeming to tremble with its own anger.

The muscles in his shoulders bunched, and he could feel a headache starting between his shoulder blades, rising up through his neck. He tightened his grip on her fingers in his and leveled his head down, anger beginning to truly bubble in his gut. He wanted to hit something, anything to alleviate the burning in his veins, the frustration and the absolute sense of wounded justice. Who was Cat Stark to look at them like that, all indignation and ire? He shouldn't have been in her rooms, but what choice was left to them? After all, it was a much smaller matter than what she had done. Sandor hadn't started a war.

A trembling of Lenna's arm against his made him glance down at her. He was bewildered to find her pressing her palm against her mouth, her eyes crinkled and tears running silently from their corners. Something in his chest constricted in hurt and shame to see her so embarrassed she was weeping, until the hitch in her shoulders told him that she wasn't upset. She was laughing so hard she was crying.

She caught his eye and shook her head, squeezing his hand in hers and fighting against the continuing onslaught of laughter. He took a deep breath, not seeing any particular humor in being called like an errant squire and a kitchen maid caught rutting in the stables before the King of the North by the boy's bloody mother. No, he was still incensed, but he was glad that Lenna seemed to be taking it in stride.

Cat burst into the small council room with unbridled fury, flinging the door open in the same entitled gesture that had spelled their discovery. Of all the years they had successfully snuck around with so much more at stake than an upbraiding, and it was now that they were caught. The bitterness and desperate hilarity of it wasn't lost on him completely.

"Robb," Cat Stark began, "I demand that you send this man out of this Keep at once. He has molested Lady Helenna and I will not brook his presence here another moment."

Robb was bent over a map, his usual stance these days, and he looked up at his mother in startled confusion. His young wife was standing at his shoulder, and she raised her eyes to Lenna and then to Sandor in turn. He wondered if she would speak for them.

"What are you talking about, mother?" Robb asked, straightening, looking Lenna and Sandor up and down.

"I found him in her rooms, and he was…he was taking liberties that a man shouldn't take of a lady, especially a man like him."

 _A man like him_. That would always be the millstone around his neck. He'd spent his life hiding from what being 'a man like him' meant, but he hadn't stopped to think too terribly hard on what others thought it was.

"I took him to her rooms," Talisa said. "I thought they would want to speak to each other."

"They were more than speaking," Cat growled. "Whatever would make you think they would want to see each other?"

"Lady Helenna told me," Talisa replied. "In confidence. She-they- feared a reaction exactly like this one. I am sorry to say that I just betrayed her confidence in speaking without her leave. I beg your forgiveness, friend."

Sandor watched as a look of sympathy and understanding passed between the two young women.

"There is nothing to forgive," Lenna replied simply, and she might have said more but she was cut off.

"You must be out of your senses," Cat Stark railed, "to allow this man to touch you. He is not your equal, and your sully yourself-"

"He is my intended," Lenna said suddenly, and Sandor's chest expanded. "I have written to my father and expect his word any day now."

"Your father would _never_ consent-"

"Yes, actually, I do believe he would," Wendel said. Sandor hadn't even noticed him, he'd been so quiet sitting in his chair near the window. A flood of heat chased through the rivulets of the scar as he colored, guilt and hot shame at being exposed before her brother making him go crimson.

"From what Lady Helenna has told me," Talisa Stark said gently, her voice musical and low, "there is no question of their intentions."

"You cannot allow this, Robb," Lady Stark hissed. "She is a highborn, Northern lady and he is..he is…"

"Stop," Lenna said suddenly, and the laughter that had earlier made her shake had been replaced by trembling rage. "Stop right there. Say no more, Lady Stark. I will not listen to anything you have to say against him. What has he done to you, I wonder, to make you hate him so? He was Cersei's guard, and then Joffrey's, yes, but hasn't he pledged himself to your service now? Hasn't be risked himself for me time and again? What more would you have of him to convince you that he is more than his face or his reputation? What more would you have of me?"

"I would have expected more of you," Cat Stark bit out, her voice like venom, her thinned lips not unlike those of a snake. "More than to align yourself with a blackguard and a Lannister dog."

Lenna had the grace to smile. "I have expected many things, my lady, of the people who claim to care for me. My blood and my father's allies. I do not fault them for falling short. But I will not be ashamed of the man who acted rather than stood by, who was brave and honest. He has killed for me, and he would die for me, and you lot would have let me stay in King's Landing until my head was mounted on its walls. You would have bewailed my fate, as you do your daughters', while doing so little to act."

"That is a strong charge," Robb bit back. "I am trying-"

"You are trying to keep a throne, your grace," Lenna replied. "And you are losing it. You have made decisions based on emotion instead of reason, and while I would never fault you from loving where you do, you have become an oathbreaker. You began this war to avenge your brother, then to avenge your father, and now- what is it you are fighting for, your grace? Is it your throne or your people? If it is your throne, be honest about it. If it is your people, do something to protect them." She was beautiful in a righteous rage, eyes blazing a brighter green in her flushed face, the lengthening curls fanned out like a dark cloud, like kelp, around her face. Her feature were sharp, almost hawkish, and he felt a surge of fierce pride.

"Now," she said, her tone diplomatic again but brooking no opposition, "if my father consents, I will marry Sandor Clegane. It is my wish and my will, though there was a time when he would have fought me."

"Aye," Sandor said quietly. "I would have. No longer."

"She's a lovely, highborn woman," Cat Stark exploded, "what reason could you possibly give-"

He mastered himself in an attempt not to strike the table with his fists at the sheer hypocrisy, his lips parting involuntarily in disbelief and indignation.

"Because of shit just like this," he growled, his voice heavy and labored. "Because it would make all of you cunts turn your nose up at her, think her tainted to be associated with the likes of me. Do you believe I haven't thought of what could happen to her, married to me? Do you think I'm that fucking selfish or stupid? I've already seen the way you look at her. I don't give a fuck how you treat me, I stopped giving a damn long ago, but you will not look down on her. You will not hurt her."

"And if her father gives his permission?" Talisa asked, and Sandor was surprised that it was the queen who spoke. When she looked at him, her eyes were almost tender, just as they had been earlier that day.

"I will not refuse," he said, looking only at the young queen.

"Robb-" Cat Stark protested.

"Aren't there more important things for us to discuss?" Lenna asked them all. "This business is ours, ours and my father's. A private matter."

"It could impact us all," Cat Stark ground out. "Word reaching the queen that you had married their traitor. Didn't you want to be of use as a diplomat? To serve as an intermediary? Will she really speak with you, will any of them, once this is done?"

Sandor sobered, and looked down at Lenna though he didn't want to hear the truth in it.

"I will have him," she said quietly. "And I will wait no longer. If my father gives his blessing, it will be done. With or without your leave, Lady Stark."

"Your mother-"

"My mother would have wanted me happy," Lenna replied. "She defied them to marry my father. My father defied Tywin Lannister to marry her. As far as I can tell, perhaps it is just a Manderly trait, marrying against Lannister wishes."

"What?" Robb asked, looking to his mother. Cat Stark had prowled away, hugging herself tightly and staring into the hearth,

"Tywin wanted my father to marry his sister, Genna," Lenna went on. "He refused, he loved my mother. It started a long series of events that eventually led my father and Tywin to sever entirely."

"They were friends?" Robb said in piqued disbelief. "Your father and Tywin Lannister were friends."

"Almost brothers," she said quietly. "I told you before. Tywin would use me as a proxy to control White Harbor."

"Even more reason that such a union is inadvisable," Cat spat.

"All due respect, Lady Stark, but you all don't get to lecture me about the inadvisability of my marriage," Lenna barked. "I broke no marriage pact. I was betrothed to the Mountain against my will, such agreements made under duress are null. You all entered willingly into your contract with Walder Frey. He's a slimy eel, and I would never have agreed to begin with, though I understand why you did, your grace, and I understand even more powerfully why you broke it." She had turned her focus from Cat Stark to young Robb. The king looked distinctly uncomfortable, almost chastened. "Your wife told me this afternoon that we should be able to lead the lives we choose, and I agree with her wholeheartedly. But you cannot point fingers at us without taking responsibility for the situation that your own marriage has cost your cause. Now. Do you want to solve the actual problem at your door, or do you want to continue to beleaguer me and cast aspersions at Clegane for wanting nothing more than what you already have?"

Robb had gone red-faced and Talisa pale. Sandor's shoulders had gone back and his chin up while she spoke, her words like a volley of arrows. He met Cat Stark's gaze defiantly until the lady looked away from him. He grunted in victory, knowing that she would say no more.

Lenna took in a deep breath, and Sandor felt her fingers go cold in his and she slipped her hand away, folding them in front of her in a stance he knew well. She leveled her gaze at Robb Stark in that unfathomably calm way of hers, pinning the young man with her gaze.

"The queen told me today that the terms had changed. That the Freys are demanding Harrenhal," she said.

"We will figure out-" Robb ground out, his jaw set and teeth grating loud enough to hear. He looked around at his council, but Manderly and Tully were both stonily looking at the table.

 _No plan then, none but hers_.

"You have less than two months," Lenna said bluntly. "Now is the time to figure it out. And I had an idea," she said with care. "You will not like it, but it is an idea."

The atmosphere in the room changed entirely. The lords and ladies had all been so focused on their scandal that they had forgotten what they were actually there to do, and the revelation of this change in what was believed to be a concluded business had thrown them, an unexpected, cold wave of helplessness tugging on them all like a riptide.

"What is it?" Robb asked, a desperate hope in his tone that made Sandor shift in discomfort. "What kind of an idea."

She would not look at Sandor, keeping her eyes settled only on the young king. His pulse began to quicken, not in the way she usually inspired. He was cold, suddenly freezing, and he clenched his jaw against the threat of his teeth chattering and the tremble in his belly.

"I said earlier that we should bait them, look for a way to draw them toward you so you could lead a decisive strike and take the Mountain's vanguard, at least to stop the raiding here in the Riverlands. Tywin grows complacent if he has left only the Mountain in Harrenhal. He has pulled more than half of his thirty thousand south, leaving a skeleton force to hold the castle. He does not believe you will move against him. Even if you did, the fortress itself would be difficult to take, even with your full forces. So you must bait the Mountain, and if need be, bait Tywin Lannister."

"We have nothing to bait them with," Robb said in frustration.

"But you do," Lenna said, her voice carefully reasonable. "You have me. And you have Clegane."

Sandor grunted, fists clenching.

"There has to be a way to keep you out of it," he said at last. "I just got you away from them."

"I will be away from them," Lenna replied. "How are they to know that I am not? I will write the letters myself. They know my hand." Sandor did not like the idea of Lenna playing their games. "We must do something," Lenna said quietly, laying her hand atop his where it was fanned out on the table, his knuckles and fingertips pale. "We must take Harrenhal. If the Freys pull their bannermen from Robb's armies, we lose nearly half our forces. Tywin has only ever kept a part of his forces encamped there, but he has more. They are in the position of strength now, and we do not know if they will send for Dornishmen."

"They have also formed an alliance with the Reach. Joffrey is to marry Margaery Tyrell."

Sandor fumed silently. He was not used to being on a losing side.

"You must establish some kind of footing, some way to keep the North separate from them. You are already refusing to side with Stannis. If you are able to lure my brother out of Harrenhal, leave the rest to me."

"Even if we were to take him," Robb said forlornly, "his force would remain."

"The men will lose heart without a commander," Lenna replied quietly. "It is why we thought Stannis had won. Joffrey retreated into the Keep and his defenders lost their will. If it hadn't been for the late arrival of Tywin and Mace Tyrell, the king would have lost that battle."

"She's right," Sandor said miserably. "I left when I thought we would lose. I had to get her out. I couldn't protect her if they'd killed me, if Stannis had won. Men were abandoning their posts left and right, the fight gone out of them. They will be vulnerable without a commander and so far from Tywin. It could work. If they think you are willing to trade her back, and if he is required to fetch her, he will ride out."

"But even if we succeeded in drawing him out, isolating him, we wouldn't be able to hide our forces. They'll have scouts even if they the numbers are depleted," Brynden Tully said. He'd been largely silent, square fingers stroking his beard, the craggy face crumpled in thought.

"Which is why these marauders-this Brotherhood without Banners, yes?- would be useful to us. If we could only get them to talk to us," Lenna said quietly. "They are obviously very good at going unnoticed."

Sandor had an idea, one just as terrible as Lenna's and about as liable to work. But, if his worked, then perhaps he would be able to prevent her being used as such an enticement.

"Bait the Brotherhood, too, then," he said plainly. "One, then the other."

Lenna looked at him in confusion. "We have nothing they want."

"Sure we do," he replied. "You have a Clegane. They want one, I'd wager they'd taken the other, too."

"You are not your brother," she replied forcefully, brow furrowed and voice harsh.

"I am a Clegane. My brother hunts them, just as he hunts us. They would want me. I've had to deal with being his kin my entire life. They won't see much of a difference between us. But I might be able to at least reason with them."

"Sandor-" Lenna protested, and he heard the fear in her voice. He didn't know how to tell her, especially in front of them, that if they didn't move soon all thoughts of a future would be pure folly.

"You're right," Robb said sternly. "I don't like it, but I see few other options if we are to keep the Freys. We will try as you suggest, Clegane, and then decide from there."

"And if a raven comes from my father in the meantime?" Lenna asked, her voice higher than usual with a slight shake that made him wince. "What then?"

"You shall have your way, my lady," Robb said quietly. Sandor found it difficult to breathe, hope and dread mixing as thick mud, slowing his every thought. "I won't stand between you."

A/N: Again, not what I'd planned out. Hope to get the next bit out to you by the weekend. You want what's coming, but it needs a bit of polishing. That chapter was originally supposed to be _this_ one, but the plot fairies intervened. I'm interested to see where they take us.

Hope everyone is doing well. Review, please. They make me happy.


	47. Chapter 47

Lenna LXVII

Waiting was interminable. Each minute felt like an hour, and no matter how many times she calculated how long it was likely to take a raven to reach White Harbor and bear a message back, she still remained in an agony of waiting.

The only thing left to do was to lay the groundwork of their scheme to draw out the Mountain. Writing a message to Tywin Lannister was harder than she thought it would be. She had sat in the small council room the majority of the morning with the king and his councillors, Sandor scowling far down the table with his arms crossed over his chest. Each time his eye involuntarily met hers, she felt the full force of his disapproval of what she had proposed.

She didn't blame him, not entirely. She wasn't sure herself how successful she would be, if Tywin Lannister would care enough to try and ransom her. He had always had an uncharacteristic soft spot for her, either through her own making or her potential usefulness, and though they had bandied the idea of writing to the queen back and forth, they ultimately decided to appeal to Tywin directly.

"The queen would certainly speak for me," Lenna argued, "but it is Tywin who will make the decision. They must believe that I was taken against my will, and that I have not found a welcome here. But perhaps instead of thinking of me as our greatest bargaining chip, perhaps I am but a tip in the balance."

"What do you mean by that?" Wendel asked. "You have always had your place with them. They esteemed you enough to keep you close when they could have simply isolated you to use at their will."

"Yes," she replied, cutting her eyes at Sandor. "But you have the Lannister boys here. What if I write to him on their behalf, but seek to trade myself as well? Maybe we can barter Wylis back in exchange for we three?"

"Wylis is valuable, but-" Robb began.

"The goal is not to gain Wylis," Wendel interjected. "It is to draw out the Mountain. If my brother is returned to us in the process, it can only be counted as a boon."

"But we lose the Lannister boys," Cat Stark objected.

"How can we lose what they do not want?" Lenna asked. It pained her, but it was clear that no one cared about the children in the dungeon. She had gone again with the queen, taking them books and sitting with them in their cell. "The Lannisters have made no mention of ransoming them. It is likely they will let them languish as long as necessary. Perhaps forever. But," she said, raising a finger, "if I am interjected into the mix, we may get those boys home and draw the Mountain toward us at the same time. We must carefully extend the best deal. Tywin loves a bargain."

Robb's forehead scrunched, his face serious and bleak.

"It makes sense. It should come from your hand, I think."

Lenna agreed, though she hadn't the faintest idea where to start. It had been over a year since she had seen Tywin Lannister, and she suspected that he would think she was being used. It gave her a kind of advantage, she decided. If the Lannisters thought she was being used, just as they used her, they were unlikely to think she had changed sides. In fact, as she sweated over her message, she realized how easy it would be for her to play the line, to refuse to take sides at all. Not that she had that option, but her confusing inbetween status made her more valuable still.

In the end, she sent as brief a message as possible, relying on Tywin to fill in the gaps.

 _My lord,_

 _I was taken from King's Landing against my will and now find myself in Riverrun. I am a captive, confined to my rooms. I never wished to leave King's Landing, my lord, you know I would not desert the queen. I pray for you all daily._

 _Your brother's sons are here as well, kept in the dungeons, mere children. I do not know, my lord, if any attempt for their ransom has been made, but please, by your leave, may I try and negotiate our release? Perhaps some sort of exchange? I fear for our futures, otherwise._

 _Humbly,_

 _Helenna Manderly_

She refused to lie to him, knowing that he would see through such almost immediately. Nothing she said was untrue. She had been taken against her will, fighting Sandor all the way. She was confined to her rooms. She did pray for them, even though she wished she could stop. Writing to them brought out the myriad complicated feelings she held for the Lannisters, and she felt quite low after the parchment was taken from her, retreating into her books in a vain attempt to lighten her breast.

Then the two ravens from White Harbor arrived within the same hour. Wendel appeared at her door red-faced and out of breath, a little scroll absurdly delicate in his meaty hands.

"I have not opened it," he wheezed, "but I brought it as soon as it arrived."

Lenna took it with trembling fingers, pulling her brother into her room by the elbow and shutting the door. She held the parchment in her hand for a nervous moment, then chastised herself for her lack of courage and broke the merman seal.

 _Dearest Lenna,_

 _We rejoice to have you safe among your own people. I want you home as soon as may be, and have written to King Robb demanding the same. As for Clegane- you are right, my girl. He has my blessing, but the consent is yours to give, as is the decision to make. I have written to the King and informed him of the matter and my wishes concerning it. Let it be as you decide. Seven preserve you both, and hasten home to us._

 _Your loving father,_

 _Wyman Manderly_

Lenna reread the message several times, each time growing closer to dispelling the gray, dreary cobwebs that had taken up residence in her chest since their arrival in Riverrun. The joy of being reunited was finally realized, and here she had her father's steadfast assurance of his blessing in her hands.

"He has consented," she said quietly, turning to her brother. "I must see Sandor. Please, Wendel."

Her brother nodded, and went still huffing out the door. While she waited, she paced the sort length of the room, reading the parchment again and again. It was almost a half an hour before she heard the heavy footsteps in the hall, her brother's lagging canter and Sandor's quick, steady gait. She opened the door before they even had the chance to knock, and Sandor did not hesitate before he crossed her threshold.

Wendel sagged against the doorframe, his face the color of beets, and Lenna silently extended the parchment to Sandor. He took it, eyes grave and face carefully neutral, holding the little scroll as if it were made of a moth's wings, tentative and careful as he unrolled it.

Lenna watched his face avidly as he read her father's perfunctory script. At first his brow furrowed, and then the lines of his face relaxed in such a way that almost made her frightened. When he got to the end of the letter, he stared at the paper for a long time before he finally lifted his eyes to hers. His gaze was warm and full of power, and she felt tears pricking at her eyes when she saw them rising in his own.

He wordlessly gathered her to his chest with a gruff clearing of his throat, still delicately holding the parchment as he roughly pressed his mouth to the top her head. He touched his forehead to hers, hair swinging forward to curtain them from Wendel's scrutiny, eyes glinting silver in the shadow.

"You're sure?" he asked, lips barely moving. She was accustomed to seeing the expression on his face that he wore now. He had braced himself for the worst, it was evident in the waxen quality of his features, so deliberately blank and still. But she'd always relied on his eyes. In them she read a hope she'd never before seen in him.

"Aye," she whispered, fingers briefly brushing against his scarred cheek. "Of course."

He caught the hand that rested on his face and pressed a brusque kiss to her fingertips before standing up straight. He looked at Wendel, still leaning against the doorframe with his hands on his knees, his face having gone from purple to merely pink.

"And we have no objection from you?" he asked, his voice flat as cold steel.

"No," Wendel wheezed. "You've been better to her than I ever was. I don't think that's likely to change."

Sandor nodded. "We should go to the king, then."

She nodded, looking up at him from under her lashes. She was finding it difficult to speak, to find any words for such a time. She finally gave up, snaking her hand into his elbow and together they went out the door, Wendel in their wake.

Neither spoke on the long walk from her quarters to the Great Hall. Sandor's whole demeanor spoke of disbelief, his expression not unlike a surprised stag or a stunned hare, glassy eyed and shimmering with anticipation.

Lenna took a deep breath and walked into the room, glad to have someone by her side. Robb Stark stood behind the great table that served as his desk, his mother at the mantle. Robb held a scroll in his hand, his expression faintly flabbergasted. Cat Stark's brow was dark, angry, and she pinched the bridge of her nose and turned away as they came in. Talisa Stark, however, was practically beaming, her smile an intimate thing that wasn't shown forth so much in her lips as in her eyes and the lift of her cheeks. Her eyes were large and liquid and shining, and Lenna felt her heart rise into her throat, happy that at least one person shared their joy.

"Your father has written a most extraordinary letter," Robb said, his words puncturing the weighty silence. "He writes to bid you be sent back to him. That we expected, and of course, as soon as we have plotted a course, we will send you back to him. Your presence here is necessary for now." She nodded. "But he also writes to inform me that he wishes-"

"It's preposterous," Cat Stark snarled from the mantle. She had her arms wrapped around her torso, hugging herself, and she jettisoned the words like darts. "I never believed he would ever actually propose such a thing. Your foolishness is one thing, Lady Helenna, but your father-I'm beginning to think, Lord Wendel, that your honorable father is growing senile. He can't be in his right mind to command such a thing."

"Your father writes, my lady," Robb began, his blue eyes dark as they rested on her gravely, "that so long as you consent 'without reservation or pause', on your father's behalf I am to offer your hand to Sandor Clegane."

"And you know that I do consent," she said with the slightest quaver in her voice. "Without pause. Or reservation. With my whole heart."

"I will not gainsay your father," Robb replied with a shake of his head. "I admit, my lady, that I did not think he would consent. It sounded- well, we all know how it sounded. But, if this is his will-"

"It is," she replied, holding up her own parchment. "But, more importantly, it is mine. So long as it is his." She looked at Sandor imploringly, wanting nothing more than for him to glance back at her. He was clearly struggling, his hands balled up into fists on his thighs.

"Then I will not stand in the way," Robb said, looking resigned as he glanced at his wife. Talisa's eyes were reproachful and he looked away from her, a blush pinking his cheeks beneath his beard.

"Madness," Cat Stark said, but Lenna paid her little mind. She was too busy looking at Sandor and feeling quite effervescent. She wanted to laugh, to take him by the cheeks and kiss him before them all. "Even if it wasn't ridiculous, it is _dangerous_. He's the Hound. What would become of Lady Helenna if something were to happen to him? She taints herself by association with him-"

"What if," Talisa said, her voice soft and even. "What if they were allowed to marry, but it was kept quiet?" She looked to Robb. "No one need know but those in this room, not until such a time it is safe. Let them wed, then send her to White Harbor when this business with Harrenhal is done. Let him prove himself. He is no dog, Lady Stark, and I do not doubt the truth of what Lady Helenna has told me. If you can't see his devotion to her, and her care for him, then you are willfully blind. They have waited long enough. We couldn't have waited as they did, my love," she said, turning those enormous eyes on Robb. "Ten years. Grant what little joy you can."

"It will be quiet, but Clegane must still consent," he said. "Will you agree to a marriage contract between yourself and Helenna Manderly, kept in confidence until such a time as it is safe to be made public?"

Lenna felt as if a bird had taken up residence in her chest, using her ribs as a perch. The wings fluttered violently against her heart, and when he finally looked at her, she felt as if she might die if he didn't speak soon.

"Aye," he said quietly, and she let out a strangled sound that was half sob, half laughter. She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him soundly. He was a little stiff with embarrassment, but when she released him, his lip was quirked at her in that familiar way and his eyes were shining. He looked much as he had the day of the Hand's Tourney, a combination of joy and disbelief. He surprised her by catching her hand in his, her little fingers engulfed in his much larger grip.

"Arrangements must be made," Talisa said from her place by Robb. "As it is a quiet affair and we have everyone's consent, there is no reason for delay."

Lenna felt the overwhelming urge to embrace her for her kindness. "Aye," she replied. "Without delay."

"Cloaks," Sandor croaked. "We don't have any."

"They can be made up," Talisa said. "Perhaps three days?" She looked at her husband, and Robb nodded curtly. "It is doubtful that we will hear from Tywin Lannister in that time, and it should be enough to make up cloaks for you."

"And a feast," Wendel said from his place by the window. "It won't be oysters and clams, Lenna, but you must have a feast of some kind."

"And a dress for Lenna and new clothes for Clegane," Talisa added. "I will take care of those arrangements. Lenna, if you would meet me in my room in the morning, we can make the cloaks together. I'm not terribly good at embroidery, but I can sew a straight seam," she said, and for the first time, Lenna saw a broad smile on the young queen's face. "And I'm sure Lady Stark will help as well. Seeing as there are no objections."

Cat Stark looked murderous when she glanced at her daughter-in-law, but she said nothing else, merely closed her eyes and clenched her jaw.

The next morning, Cat Stark appeared in Talisa's chambers without a word. She was clear-eyed and pleasant, not a single bitter word passing her lips. Lenna wondered at first if she had had a change of heart, but her dedication to the Manderly cloak alone gave her doubts. Cat Stark sat for those three mornings with the aqua wool spread across her lap, the color as close as they could come amongst the drapers of Riverrun. She placidly sewed in the cream lining, carefully cutting and sewing on the merman and trident, her stitches smooth as satin.

While she kept her focus on the maiden's cloak, Lenna and Talisa worked arduously over Sandor's. The texture of the wool was fine, tightly woven and well-made. It was soft rather than stiff, and she ran her fingers over it affectionately, thinking of its purpose as she did so. She supposed she should be a little upset that these would not be their real cloaks, but she couldn't help but think it was perhaps a good thing that they were making at least Sandor's new. The one that undoubtedly lay in some chest in Clegane's Keep had too much unhappy history pressed between its folds.

"I doubt I shall ever see his family's cloak," Lenna said, her lap full of yellow wool. She was carefully sewing on the snarling dogs, their teeth bared and eyes fierce. It was a brazen sigil, the black hounds on their yellow field, but she did not dislike it. She thought it very appropriate for him, much as she thought the Tully fish so appropriate for cold Lady Stark. "I would wager this one will be finer than it is anyway. Sandor has always insinuated that they didn't care much for such things."

"A House cloak is a precious thing," Cat Stark said from her place. "The Stark cloak is centuries old, as I'm sure the Manderly one is. They should be sewn to last."

There was a hint of disapprobation in her tone that Lenna chose to ignore. She cared little for the maiden's cloak she would wear. Her family's cloak was in White Harbor, safely stored away and while she would have liked to have felt it on her own shoulders, she was much more interested in the one that would be cast around her. A maiden's cloak was worn for only a few minutes, removed by the bride's attendants and then replaced with the groom's cloak. That one she would wear through the rest of the ritual and during the feast thereafter.

Talisa's eyes flickered to hers in a flash of annoyance, her stitching fine and even, but Lenna kept her focus on her work, adding the flash of white teeth to the last dog, pretending not to understand Lady Stark's insinuations.

"I intend for this one to do just that," Lenna replied. "If we never see the Clegane cloak, this one will take its place. Our children will use it after us. I like that thought," she said said, pausing with a dreamy smile. "I like thinking of them, girls with it thrown about their shoulders, young men using it to cloak wives. It's better that it's new."

"Tradition-"

"I would never have Sandor wear something that his brother did," Lenna said gravely. "Nor would I wish to feel that mantle settle over my shoulders that had cloaked two doomed women. That other cloak was meant for me, remember, and the man who put it there was to be the Mountain."

Cat Stark actually looked at a loss for words, wide eyes again on her task, but Lenna didn't miss it when she pricked herself on accident, her fingers darting to her mouth to catch the welling of blood.

"I agree with you," Talisa said, her eyes flicking to her mother-in-law. "This cloak is a new start, just as all weddings are. I think the tradition quite romantic, though I admit I still find these customs strange."

"I forget that you were raised differently," Lenna said. "I was raised in the Faith of the Seven, like Lady Stark was here in the Riverlands. We Manderlys are alone among our Northern neighbors in our adherence to the Faith. They venerate the Old Gods. Did your family practice?"

"In name only," Talisa replied. "We were followers of the Lord of Light. R'hllor. I never cared much for him, though."

"Why?" Lenna asked. She knew a little about the religion, remembered Thoros of Myr in his red robes with his top-knot and flaming sword. She always thought he was an odd candidate for a priest, fond as he was of drink and women.

"You believe in Seven Heavens and Seven Hells," Talisa said quietly. "We believe, supposedly, that this world we live in is hell, and it is by faith we are freed from it."

"Not very cheerful," Cat said sardonically.

"Not at all," Talisa agreed. "I do not like to think any greater being would damn us before we had a chance to prove ourselves."

Lenna pursed her lips and nodded. She had finished basting the cloak together, the yellow wool over the black silk lining.

"Though, you have to admit it sometimes seems like we're living in hell," she said absently. There had been many times in the past years where she had lain away and wondered if she was dead and being punished. She knew it couldn't be the case, simply because she had done nothing to warrant such a consequence. Then again, she had also learned that the world was unjust, and those who suffered usually did so through no fault of their own.

"Do you feel that today, my lady?" Talisa asked. Lenna smiled.

"Of course not," she replied. And it was true. It would be easy to believe that this world was hell. She knew that as well as many, though not as well as some. She had woken in cold sweat each night since their arrival in Riverrun, scratching at her hands to wipe off Locke's blood even though there was none. She sometimes had abrupt visions of Ned Stark's severed head, of poor Septa Mordane. Then there was the sight of her braid in Sandor's hand, Sansa's pretty mouth bloodied as she clutched his cloak around her shaking form.

Hell was learning of her mother's death so far from home, and the lack of contact with her family. Hell was Joffrey's rage, Ser Ilyn Payne's stalking shadow, and the moment she had been betrothed to the Mountain.

Yes, it would be simple to dwell on all that was bad in her own world. But to believe that this would was hell would render tainted the joys she had found.

"No," she said, looking at Talisa with a soft smile. "This world is not hell. Nor is it heaven, either. It is just the world. Sometimes I think we are all living through such great sorrow, but the sorrow is punctuated with such joy. That is why we bother to continue on, to strive. To reach the next moment of joy."

"You are an idealist," Cat Stark said from her place, her brow raised as she kept her eyes down, but her tone was not unkind. "I am surprised."

"Why?" Lenna replied. She was not feeling combative, but she was intrigued, wondering if this was a moment to insinuate herself into Cat Stark's good graces.

"It is evident to me that you have suffered," Lady Stark said. "No one denies it. We all have, in our ways, some more deeply than others. But it has not turned you bitter, not as it has me."

Lenna dropped her needle, stunned. Cat Stark would still not look at her, eyes still on her work, but Lenna saw the strain of pain in her face.

"What good would my bitterness be?" she asked quietly. "If I'd become bitter, they could have turned me on you all. If I was bitter, you could turn me on them. I have no desire for vengeance, my lady. No desire for war or further bloodshed."

"I wonder," Cat said, "how you managed to keep such equilibrium."

"I haven't always," she replied truthfully. "I remember once seriously considering whether or not I could jump from my window. Death seemed better than living."

"Good gods," Cat hissed, her eyes unexpectedly flying to Lenna's. The cold detachment that she had maintained since Lenna's arrival melted, and Lenna saw the same empathy there that she'd often seen in Sansa's, in Robb's. "You would never-"

"I had just been told I was to be sold to the Mountain," she said. "Wouldn't it have crossed your mind in the same situation? I was going to die either way. Better of my own volition, was it not? But, no," she said at last. "I could not do it. And then he came."

"Who?"

"Sandor," she said. "Sansa tried to come to me, the queen, my maid, Lord Tyrion- they all tried to come to me, but I would only see him. After he left, I didn't think of it again."

"What could he have possibly said?"

"It wasn't what he said," she replied. "But he reminded me that things are not over until they are over. So long as we keep trying, they can get better. It might not be this instant, tomorrow, next month, or even next year, but we only lose if we give up."

"You are a Northerner," Cat said with a wry smile.

"I don't know how much it has to do with that," she replied. "Perhaps I am just foolish. Nevertheless," she continued, "we have to look forward to the future. There is nothing to be gained to always be looking back."

Cat Stark looked at her levelly, and with a nod that felt almost like a blessing, she turned her attention back to the cloak in her lap, silence again falling over the women as they stitched and sewed.

Sandor XLVII

It happened so quickly he didn't know which way was up. He'd spent the previous week doing his best to keep his head down and do what he could to prove to these hostile Northerners that he wasn't going to stab them in the back. He'd sat in endless strategy meetings, poring over maps to the point his vision started to blur. It became apparent to him all too quickly that these Northerners didn't know how to deal with a man like Tywin Lannister or his own brother. Their every conversation hinged on straightforward and honest warfare, something that was not at all a part of the Lannister playbook. He struggled to listen more than he talked, but he was growing frustrated by the endless back and forth.

He took out his irritation in the training yards. He'd been given a group of twenty men, all showing some promise. They were mostly young, green lads who had never known war before this, and the thought made him grunt. Of course they hadn't known war. Westeros had been at peace since the victory of the Robert Baratheon and the fall of the Targaryens. Even the little rumpus that was the Greyjoy Rebellion had been quickly put down. These boys had grown up in summer and peacetime, and now their whole world was coming apart at the seams.

He took satisfaction in seeing them improve, whether it was with a sword, a mace, or a warhammer. He oversaw them sparring with each other, demonstrating when necessary, and was able to finally spend more of his own time refining his own skills. He was growing rusty again, not exactly soft, but slower than he liked. It helped to have sparring partners worth the trouble, and his blood sang to cross swords with some of Robb Stark's more competent fighters.

He was wiping the sweat from his forehead when Wendel Manderly arrived in the yards, huffing and puffing and the color of plums. It took him several attempts, blowing air as he grasped his knees, but eventually communicating that Lenna needed to see him.

He dropped his sword and yelled for a squire. He'd been sweaty and breathing hard, but then he'd gone cold and breathless, tearing at the plate and making himself presentable as quickly as he could, though it would never have been quickly enough.

He didn't care that he was nearly running through the Keep, poor Manderly struggling to keep up behind him. He forced himself to shorten his gait, feet treading blindly as he made his way directly to her chamber door, rapping once on the wood and holding his breath while he waited. His belly trembled in anticipation.

She opened the door to him, a raven-sent parchment in her hand, her eyes meeting his immediately. _Joy_ , he had thought vaguely, wondering at its sudden appearance in her face after such a prolonged absence. She looked like she'd been lit from within.

The subsequent half hour still felt like something out of a dream. A _good_ dream. Three days later, and he had still not fully worked through his feelings. In fact, he was quite overwhelmed by them, even now as he walked through the darkened godswood with Wendel Manderly at his side. They were headed toward the Sept. It wasn't large like the Sept of the Snows, but a modest, seven cornered building made of the same sandstone as the castle. The tall windows were ablaze with candlelight, just as they always were. To anyone passing by, it was just another night, but not for him.

He was walking to his wedding. His wedding to _her._

He felt keenly the unfairness of such a rushed affair. He knew that she wanted to be with her family, to have her nieces wait on her, her father walk her into the Sept of the Snows. The vision of her in her maiden's cloak had been one that haunted him for years. He had heard that she and Talisa Stark had been hard at work sewing cloaks as quickly as possible, one in aqua and white for her, yellow and black for him. They would be new, hasty versions of the family cloak that centuries of her family's women had worn, though his was significantly less used.

But nothing was what it should have been. She was a highborn lady, a lovely one, and she was supposed to be married in her family's Sept with all the attached ceremony. He knew he would never have been comfortable with that, though he could have forced himself to do it. The idea that theirs would be a small affair relieved him, but he felt selfish for feeling so. She wasn't supposed to be slinking off in the night to tie her life to his. She was supposed to have the right cloaks, the proper attendants, the crowds, the feasts, and it both pleased and infuriated him that it would be rushed, that she was so amenable to the slapped together arrangements.

He shook his head. It wasn't the way things were supposed to be done, but in a right world, she would never be marrying the likes of him to begin with. She should be tied to some handsome, highborn lord with a fine keep and deep coffers, not a sellsword and a traitor. But here he was, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other to fight against the queasy rumbling in his belly, a profound mix of disbelief, fear, and elation. She wanted him. Why, he would never understand, but he was tired of fighting it. He never wanted to fight it to begin with, part of him had stretched toward her on the very first day he saw her, and he had been greedily grasping after anything she would give him since. If she wanted to give him everything, by the gods, he was going to take it.

"Feeling nervous?" Wendel asked, watching as Sandor ran a long finger around his collar. It was warm out, and Sandor chafed a little against the high collar of his jerkin. It, too, had been hastily made, but it was made of fine cloth, better than he ever remembered wearing, but stiff in its newness.

"Were you?" he asked, looking askance at his soon-to-be brother. He shook out his shoulders in an effort to clear his head, silently admitting to himself that yes, he was fucking petrified.

"I vomited," Wendel said with a nostalgic smile. "Before and after."

Sandor hummed in his throat, but he couldn't find words to say anything else, worried that if he opened his mouth he might do the same.

The group of witnesses was small, of course. Just Wendel, Robb Stark and his mother, Brynden Tully and the septon. He was a wizened old man, his white robes glowing benignly in the candle light. He gestured for Sandor to come and stand by him, face kind but unsmiling. The air in the room thrummed with tension, a mixture of nervousness and reticence. If he'd had his way, there would be no one there save the septon, the others only included because it was her wish that it should never be openly contested. No one in the room would be able to claim that she had been coerced, that she had said her words under duress.

Cat Stark held out a cloak to him, yellow and heavy. She kept her eyes down, and he reached for the garment with a pang of annoyance. It disappeared when he shook the thing out and took in the fine material of the fabric, a tightly woven wool, and the three snarling dogs that chased across the back, their teeth glinting white with embroidery. They were more detailed than he'd expected, almost identical to the real one in his family's Keep in the Westerlands, but he would wager this one was of finer quality. It was lined in black silk, a sturdy clasp at the throat, and he wondered how late she must have stayed up to have made such in two days, even with the young queen's help.

"She wouldn't sleep last night until it was finished," Cat said, perhaps reading the question in his furrowed brow. "She drew the dogs herself, found your arms in a book of lineage. She and Talisa wanted it to be as fine as possible. For you. For your children."

He felt like someone was squeezing his windpipe, preventing him from swallowing. When he managed to look at Cat Stark, knowing she could read the struggle in his expression, he saw her face visibly relax. He could do nothing but nod. In gratitude.

The door opened again, pulling his attention. Talisa Stark appeared, leading Lenna beside her. The queen's eyes met his solemnly, and he was grateful to her. She'd played the role of the friend, helping Lenna dress, arrange her hair, whatever it was women did in preparation for such an event. Talisa left her there on her own to come stand next to her husband, slipping her hand into his elbow.

He couldn't see Lenna clearly, the back of the sept shadowy and beyond the reach of the candles lit beneath the seven pointed star. Wendel bustled away from him, standing in for his father to escort her.

Then she stepped into the light, and he stopped breathing. His heart slowed to an irregular thump as he stared back at her, an incredible sense that this had already happened playing through his mind. He'd lain awake like a squire and dreamed of this, hadn't he, of her shining face as she came toward him? How many times had he let himself envision it, only to kick himself for foolishness in his waking hours, feeling the gross impossibility that it would ever come to pass?

 _This can't be happening, not really_.

But there she was. They'd found a white gown for her, or perhaps it had been made quickly for her, like his clothes had been. It was simply constructed with little by way of decoration. She was never one for ornamentation, always garbed in her somber northern colors, only his ribbons threaded through her hair. One of them was there now. Someone had cleverly figured out a way to braid the shortened curls into a crown, the first ribbon he'd ever brought her woven through the dark plait, the strands of gold thread winking in the dim light. Over her shoulders was cast the aqua cloak, lined with white silk.

He expelled a breath he wasn't aware he was holding, but she was standing before him now, waiting. He didn't remember how she had traveled to him, he'd been too intent on her face, that soft smile that she reserved for him. It was solemn but bright, and he didn't quite know what to do with the tightness centered in his chest, his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth when her lips quirked ever so slightly. Despite himself, he felt his own lip return it, and her smile widened, lighting her eyes, casting one dimple into sharp relief in her pale cheek as she looked up at him. Sandor looked at her upturned face feeling like he had been walloped with a siege engine. Her lips painted coral, her eyes lined with kohl. It made them greener. Despite the solemnity of her features, she looked like she'd been cast in porcelain, and her eyes were full of light.

His lungs filled abruptly with air. He felt his face flush, even the scar warming, turning his eyes from her and blinking back to make sure she was really there.

"You may now cloak the bride and bring her under your protection," the septon said, and Sandor abruptly remembered what they were there to do.

Talisa and Cat Stark stepped forward and removed Lenna's cloak from her shoulders, Cat folding it carefully over her arm. Her eyes met his over Lenna's shoulder with an expression that was half challenge, half entreaty. Sandor stood there dumbly until Wendel jabbed him in the side with an elbow. That jolted him out of his stupor. He fumbled at the clasp of his own cloak, but managed to move around her to drape it over her shoulders. He'd always wanted to see her wrapped in his colors, the dogs on her back, and to have it really before his eyes made his stomach tremble.

It seemed like he was wading through water as he took his place beside her again, every hair on the back of his arms aware that she was standing beside him and about to be his wife. _Wife._ It had begun. The cloaks might be too new, the Sept might be wrong, as well as the witnesses and the hour, but the act itself was still right. She was truly his to protect now, and the thought stole his breath and made him fierce.

It almost felt as if he was someone else, extending his left hand to accept her right, the little fingers settling familiarly between his. He looked at them in mild fascination, with an odd detachment, and the Septon wrapped them in the white ribbon.

"In the sight of the Seven, I hereby seal these two souls, binding them as one for eternity."

 _Forever_ , he thought numbly. _Forever is just a ribbon_.

He couldn't help but remember the crone in the market in King's Landing, her milky eyes seeing him despite her blindness. When he'd bought it, the ribbon that was now wound through her hair, he had never expected that he'd be standing beside her with a white ribbon wrapped around their wrists, but perhaps he'd sealed himself to her that day without knowing it

"Look upon one another and say the words," the Septons voice was grave, solemn.

His head snapped up. This was the part he had dreaded most, having to speak in front of them, in front of her. But when he turned toward her, all he saw was Lenna, her face somber and serene as her eyes came to his again.

He took a deep breath and waited for her. "Father, Smith, Warrior," he said, their voices twining together, rough and soft. "Mother, Maiden, Crone. Stranger. I am hers, and she is mine, from this day, until the end of my days."

It was easier than he thought it would be, the words spilling like water. Like a cataract, a rush of a vow that rose up deafening and consuming in his ears. He only wished they didn't have to say it together, wished he could have properly heard her pledge herself. To him.

 _Mine_.

"Let it be known that Helenna of House Manderly and Sandor of House Clegane are one heart, one flesh, one soul. Cursed be he who would seek to tear them asunder."

"With this kiss, I pledge my love, and take you for my lord and husband," she said, her gaze limpid in the dim moonlight that flowed through the seven-pointed window behind the Septon.

"With this kiss, I pledge my love, and take you for my lady and wife," he replied, proud of himself that his voice didn't falter. A curious stone had taken up residence in his throat, and he was sure it was going to choke him.

She smiled at him, and despite the others around them, Sandor lifted his hand and traced his fingers along her cheek before using his forefinger to tip her face up and lower his head to hers.

He didn't mean for it to catch fire, he didn't mean for that to happen at all, but it did. His fingers moved of their own accord, cradling her skull to him as hers twined into the hair at the base of his neck and twisted. He groaned, unable to stop it before it erupted. Her mouth opened beneath his and he leaned into her, eyes squeezed shut and chest clenching painfully.

"Well," he heard Wendel smirk. "I think that took."

Lenna giggled into his mouth and pulled away from him. He felt another flush spread over his cheek and he rubbed a hand along the back of his neck in discomfort.

"Congratulations on such a fine wife, Clegane," Wendel Manderly said jovially, clapping Sandor across the shoulders. "You'd never find better."

"No," he replied woodenly.

 _Wife_.

"Now, wasn't there something about a feast?" Wendel asked, smiling broadly and slapping his prominent belly.

He couldn't exactly find words to describe what it felt like to sit next to her at their wedding feast, to be able to look at her, to touch her and speak with her in the full sight of others without trying to keep it hidden. It was a small affair, just the witnesses and taking place in Robb Stark's private rooms, but the food was plentiful and the wine was flowing, and it was one of the most enjoyable evenings he could ever remember. He didn't think he'd ever felt so welcome at a feast, not only sitting in the place of honor, but with Wendel Manderly clapping him on the back like a brother. It startled him to realize that in marrying her, Sandor had acquired two brothers, both of whom actually seemed to like him. It was a curious thing.

It ended sooner than he anticipated, though it was well after midnight when they were ushered toward Lenna's chambers with good-natured ribbing and ribald jokes from the lips of the king and Wendel. The atmosphere of the castle had palpably changed, some of the icy distrust he'd felt directed at him, the wariness, slipping away into a strange and fragile camaraderie. If he didn't know better, he'd think that Robb Stark and Brynden Tully actually respected him. Even Cat Stark's icy facade had melted, laughing a little here and there, trying to smile. Lenna's happiness was infectious, she had been beaming at them all for hours, giggling with Talisa Stark like girls, his cloak still spread across her shoulders.

It filled him with an almost obscene pride to see her in his yellow and black. He'd never felt much affection for his House before, more defiant about his origins than anything else, but the fierce pleasure he derived from seeing her swathed in his colors made the bottom of his stomach fall. It was a sight he never thought he'd actually see, but now she was walking before her him, her little hand in his leading him onward through the silent passageways of the Keep, his dogs snarling at him. He smiled.

She opened the door to what must be her room, and she was chattering away as she crossed it. He'd only been half-attending to what she was saying during the entire trip, far too distracted by his own thoughts. He found himself stopping dead at the threshold, halted in his tracks as he realized what he was about to do. She turned back to look at him, question in her eyes.

"If I come in, we won't be able to undo it," he said gravely, his heart having risen to his throat. For all they had been through, a small, vociferous part of himself could not accept that she meant it. After all, Sandor Clegane knew what he was. He was ugly, he was mean, churlish and savage, he had a sharp bark, a bad disposition, and he took joy in killing. He had no money, no real position, no fine Keep to offer her, just his body and his sword. He was nothing in comparison to what she was, to what she should have, and if he made one more step into her chamber, their binding would be irrevocable.

"Sandor," she said softly, "don't be silly." She came to him then, reaching her hand out and pulling him forward, his foot landing solidly on the other side as she closed the door behind them. When she turned back to him, he was on her in an instant.

He felt like his senses had sharpened, he was aware of the gush of blood in his ears, in his arms and fingers, want pulsing through him like rapids. She was pressed against him, his arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her as tightly to him as he possibly could while his other hand curved behind her skull and held her still as he crushed his mouth to hers.

 _Mine_.

He could think of nothing else as he began his onslaught, slanting lips and tongue and teeth across her neck, her shoulders, every bit of bare skin he could reach. She was already making those soft sounds of pleasure that made his blood rise, her fingers digging into his shoulders to keep herself upright.

He took a brief step away from her, looking down on what he had done, her swollen and reddened lips parted and her eyes dark and glassy. He felt his lip twist, and her hand came up to rest on his chest as she braced herself against his unrelenting grip.

"Husband," she murmured, and he let out a breath in a hot gust, dipping his head in sudden shyness.

"Wife," he replied, laying his own hand on top of hers. Every fiber of him thrummed with want, but he found himself temporarily unmoored and stilled. He stood looking at her dumbly, not knowing what he should do, wondering why hesitation should now stretch so tightly between them. Then she raised up on her tiptoes, just as she had that day at the tourney, and her lips found his.

He grunted in response, then his hands went to her shoulders, to her jaw, and she wrapped her arms around his torso, but not with the frenzied need of just moments before. He could feel her hands running up and down the tight planes of his back, kneading into the muscle as she clasped him to her. Their movements were unhurried now, languorous and slow, utterly without desperation. He could not remember a time when there had not been fear, when he was not half-terrified that someone would discover them, even on the road.

Here they would not be disturbed, no one allowed in that part of the Keep, and it made him even bolder than before. His fingers found the clasp of her cloak- his cloak- and he unfasted it, tossing it onto her bed. He looked a little skeptically at the four-poster, wondering if it could stand up to what he planned to do. It looked a little delicate, and he smirked wickedly.

"What are you scheming?" Lenna asked with laughter in her voice. Gods, but he didn't think he'd seen her look like that since her girlhood, the fine lines of worry that usually crossed her forehead smoothed, the furrow between her brows vanished. Even her eyes laughed, and all the regret and guilt and anxiety he felt about wedding her here, wedding her at all, dissipated in the knowledge that he had not just protected her, but he had made her happy.

He'd never thought he'd make someone happy, especially not a woman, and though he knew that Lenna Manderly thought she loved him, found pleasure with him, the unmitigated joy that radiated from her was almost staggering. Especially because he was quite sure he looked just as soppily enraptured as she did.

 _She loves you. She married you. She's not going anywhere._

With deliberate movements, he tugged at the silken ties of the white dress, fingers pulling on the complicated weaving of ribbon that held it closed at the back. He was surprised when he pulled the ribbon away entirely to discover that it was the crimson one he had given her so many years ago.

"I always thought there was a significance to that color," she said quietly, flirting with him with her eyes.

"Aye," he said with an impish smirk. "You were right."

"Won't you tell me what it was?" It always delighted him when she flirted with him like that, her plump mouth twisted into a coquette's smile, mischief in her eyes.

 _Mine_.

He stepped back a bit, the dress slack at her shoulders as she arched a brow at him.

"When you wore that dress," he said quietly, thumbs playing in circles on the exposed tops of her shoulders, "I was always afraid I wouldn't be able to keep my hands off you. That I'd pull you into some dark corner, into my room even, and peel it off you until it puddled at your feet."

"I only wore it thrice that I recall," she said, amused. "A very long time ago."

"At that banquet when they made you sing," he said. "And for Lord Tyrion's nameday. Both times it was lucky that they didn't order me to take you back to your rooms."

"I wish they had," she replied cheekily. "I would have let you ravish me."

"I know that now," he chuckled. "But it felt impossible then. And after Joffrey's tourney-"

"You were so angry with me," she said, a sad smile on her lips. "Why did we spend so much time hurting each other?"

He took her hand and kissed the palm. "Doesn't matter. Not now."

She smiled a little more brightly, and tugged the gown from her shoulders, the garment pooling on the floor at her feet. Her fingers went to the fastenings on his jerkin, and he was content to let her work them loose, admiring the way the fire in the hearth revealed her to him through the thin fabric of her chemise.

It was so unlike all of their previous nights together, so different that he had difficulty wrapping his head around being so at peace, so at leisure. Lenna Manderly was his, no one would interrupt them. He would not have to slip from her chambers before daybreak like some thief. He smiled to realize that he would awaken next to her and not have to worry about rushing away. He'd be able to stay with her, to roll her in his arms, and he was looking forward to that almost as much as he was looking forward to what he was about to do.

She'd divested him of his jerkin, his tunic, and his trousers, and he slowly untied the ribbon of her chemise, letting the gossamer thing fall about her and join her gown on the floor. His fingers itched as he pulled on the green ribbon woven through her hair, making quick work of the braided crown, her growing curls falling down, brushing her chin. They twined against his fingers as they always did, and he stroked them for a long moment, fully aware of her gaze on him.

When he looked back at her face, he was dismayed to see tracks of tears spilling down her cheeks, his chest tightening as if a boulder had been placed on his breastbone.

"What's wrong?" he asked lowly, an unpleasant trembling in his belly.

"Nothing," she replied, her arms going around his neck. He let out a harsh breath when she pressed herself against him. "Nothing could possibly be wrong right now."

He tasted the salt on her lips as he brought his face down to hers again, relishing the soft touch of her fingers on his cheeks, over the scar. Her fingers dug into the base of his skull just like he liked, twisting into his hair there and tugging him ever closer.

It wasn't their first time, of course, but it felt different. It felt new. For the first time that he could remember, Sandor thought only of her, his consciousness dedicated solely to the feeling of her against him, the sounds she was making slipping into his ears, the taste of her in his mouth. The constant buzz of stress and anxiety that had always been present, even from their earliest encounters, was gone.

He gave himself over to it fully, hands and lips tracing the familiar lines of her, edging her back toward her bed. The backs of her knees hit the edge and he pushed her back, crawling over her as she sank into the pile of pillows, his body pressing hers into the thick quilts. Her chest was heaving, and he traced his finger tips over her breasts, circling them with roughened hands in the way that made her shudder, her back arching toward him. It was satisfying to him to see her reaching, straining toward him, her eyes never leaving his.

She reached between them and grasped him firmly, pulling a deep grunt from his groin. He rested his forehead in the crook of her neck, biting down on the soft muscle there when her hand began to move. He trailed his own hand down the length of her until he encountered her slickness, using his fingers to drive her higher, the pitch of her breaths and the soft, wispy cries rising with each touch. Gods, but she was ready.

He'd meant to draw it out, but when she parted her legs and drew him closer, nesting the tip of him inside her, he lost all desire for something slow. Instead, he slid into her powerfully, forehead pressed to hers. He grabbed her hands, bringing them above her head even as her legs wrapped around his waist, her heels digging into the backs of his thighs.

He measured his thrusts by the sounds she was making, drinking in the sight of her reddening cheeks and chest even as he was overcome by the sensation of her tight around him. It was right, it was so right, and when his hand found the spot that made her wanton again, she didn't last very long, straining against his grip that held her wrists, her head thrown back and her hair wild as she convulsed around him, his name spilling from her lips.

He felt his own peak upon him, but when he tried to pull away from her, he found he couldn't, her legs wrapped too tightly around him. He spent himself with three long thrusts, his eyes arrested by the fierce and determined expression on her face, lips still crimson and parted in pleasure.

He collapsed over her, rolling to the side to avoid crushing her. He felt stunned, like a rabbit struck with sling, reclining in her bed with his eyes on the ceiling, not quite able to wrap his head around what he'd done. What they'd done.

Her hand came to rest on his cheek, the slender fingers stroking his beard before turning his face to hers. He looked back at her solemn face, her eyes wide and lustrous as moons, knowing that he looked similarly dazed.

"Husband," she said again, her lip quirking at him.

"Aye, wife," he said, and the word felt strange on his tongue, forbidden, but then she smiled and nestled against his shoulder.

When he closed his eyes, he found sleep easily, resting content for perhaps the first time since his childhood, and when he dreamed, he dreamed of her and laughing children and meadows that ran down to the sea.

A/N: So, the kids finally got hitched. I couldn't leave you all in the lurch while I go on my adventure. It will probably be the end of July before I can get the next installment up (but you know me, I say I'm taking a break and then...don't. We'll see.)

Natalie- I hope this satisfies for a bit!

As always, thanks for all of your continued to support. If you have a minute, please leave a review. The more I get, the more I write. I respond well to positive reinforcement.


	48. Chapter 48

Lenna XLVIII

At first, she was simply aware of his warmth beside her in the bed. He had curled against her as he was wont to do, her head tucked under his chin and one of his arms across her ribs, pulling her close against his chest. He shifted and she felt him pressed against her, a smile curling on her lips as she pushed lightly back against him, the light from her window spilling through the glass and over the counterpane as he rumbled and ground his pelvis against her rear, whatever he was saying shapeless in his sleep, just a murmur of assorted sounds.

She could tell it was a beautiful morning, the sunbeams bursting between the fluttering drapes and coating the floor like a pool of butter. A bird sang, just a few sweet notes, a fraction of a melody, and she smiled.

Morning. It was morning, and he was still in her bed.

She gasped in panic, sitting straight up so quickly that she heard him grunt as he awakened to her elbow in his ribs, her terror that they would be caught slipping through her veins like a numbing poison. _We have always been so careful_ , she chastised herself, _he's always left before dawn_. Now she was quite sure it was past breakfast, the sunrise long since past and having given way to day.

She looked down at him with wide eyes, her hand clutching at his bare shoulder as she wordlessly wondered why he was so quiet and not scrambling for his clothes. He wasn't fussed at all, actually. In fact, he was smirking at her, stretching rather lazily, the ridges of his ribs playing under his skin as he raised his arms over his head and yawned as if he had no concerns in the world.

"Morning, wife."

She gaped at him for a moment with her mouth hanging open in an unladylike and unattractive fashion, and then it hit her with the force of a gale, startling a shocked guffaw from her belly. He looked up at her with clear gray eyes, a full smile twisting his mouth, a flash of surprisingly even white teeth. To someone else, it may have been a gruesome sight, his ravaged face twisted as it was, but it stole her breath. He seldom smiled like that, a grin, really, and she could not contain her own mirth. She laid a hand over her still thumping heart, and he drew her down beside him, turning her laughter into shrieks as he single-mindedly ran his hands over her skin, muttering ridiculous threats if she didn't stop giggling.

She'd never seen him so playful, his fingers tickling along her ribs and he only succeeded in making her laugh harder than before, interspersing such innocent touching with indecent caresses that turned her giggles into sudden gasps and lit his face with something more fierce than playfulness.

It felt positively lascivious to do such things with sunlight pouring into the room, to be able to observe him so much more clearly in the morning light. He had rolled them so that she was at his mercy beneath him, holding himself above her and dipping his head to run his mouth along her neck, her collar bones and breasts, his touch light and eliciting shuddering, almost giggling gasps as his hot breath tickled her. When she dug her hands into his hair, he suddenly became more forceful, nipping at the spot beneath her ear that he knew she liked, his other hand parting her, dipping into her and drawing a needy mewl from her throat.

She savored watching his reactions, the strain in his neck, the open-mouthed panting, the way he gritted his teeth. He was watching her, too, and she did her best to give him something to remember, not holding back in her cries, arching her body beneath his as he dragged the rasp of his chest across her sensitive skin. She could tell he was trying to go slowly, to draw it out, but she was as impatient in the morning light as she had been in the glow of the hearth and candles the night before.

She darted out from beneath him and managed to straddle him when he turned in surprise, quickly sheathing him in herself, gratified by the sound that erupted from his throat and the way his face tightened. She moved the way he'd taught her, his hands gripping her hips so tightly she wouldn't be surprised if she found bruises there later, five circles on each flank where his fingers had dug into her flesh.

Reaching between them, she attended to herself, marking the savage look that had overtaken his earlier playfulness. He looked at her as if he was going to consume her. _He already has_ , she thought hazily, refusing to close her eyes even as her peak came upon her, biting down on her lip when one of his hands roughly squeezed her breast, his fingers twisting the nipple as she reared back and shuddered around him, his own gaze never leaving hers.

The strain in his neck was great when he spent himself in tandem with her, and she felt it hot and thick and strangely sensuous, pulsing deep in her as he thrust upward. The feeling of it sent her unexpectedly into another wave of pleasure, this one leaving her bereft of energy as she collapsed against him, her head on his chest as he still twitched inside her.

He was breathing hard, the pant of his breath cool against her sweaty forehead, and he wordlessly planted erratic kisses on her crown, one of his great arms looped loosely around her waist, his other hand splayed across the back of her head as he cradled her tightly. The taut muscle of his chest beneath her head flexed as he stroked her, hands wandering at leisure, his chin tucked over the top of her head. She hadn't felt so peaceful or calm since she'd been a girl. She could almost forget where they were, what was happening, so long as she was warm and wrapped up against him. She got the distinct impression that he was somehow embarrassed.

"Well," she said, when it was clear that he was in no mood to speak. She continued to trace her fingers up and down his arm, relishing the contrast of muscle and skin. She didn't have to see him to observe how relaxed he was. She didn't think she'd ever felt such quiet from him before. "Good morning, husband."

He tilted her face up to his, his expression soft and serious, and he kissed her almost chastely before disentangling himself from her, both of them softly groaning when he slipped from her, and he rose from the bed. She could see the reluctance in his body as he dragged himself away, a slight stumble in his walk, and it made her smile. She leaned back into the pillows and watched him as he prepared for his day, relishing the odd intimacy of it, though it was obvious to her that he was aware of her scrutiny.

"What are you so fascinated by?" he asked after a while, clearly a bit uncomfortable with the way she was watching him.

"You, husband," she replied simply, twirling one her short curls around her finger. He growled but there was no bite to it, and she thought she detected a trace of a smile when he turned from her to splash water from the ewer across his face.

Husband. She liked the way it felt in her mouth, though it was strange, foreign. It made her color and feel bashful to say it, and it was pulled from her like a spell. It certainly had a marked effect on him. It made him cast his eyes down, almost embarrassed, and she had the distinct impression that he was getting used to it, too.

For all her dreaming, Lenna had quite given up on ever being a wife. She was sure that Sandor had never thought he'd ever be a husband. He'd told her as much, and everything he'd ever said or done had confirmed that he didn't think that was part of his fate. Yet, here they both were, that seemingly impossible wish granted with a swiftness that still had her head spinning and her heart racing.

There was much to discuss, but now it was time for him to go to his men. She relished the ordinariness of his rising, his preparation, and for a moment she could imagine that this had been their routine for a long time indeed. He dressed quickly, his plate stored in the barracks where a squire would help him, and once his boots were tied he came to her where she still lay in her- their- bed.

"Time to get up," he said with a trace of humor in his voice. "You are to go to the queen, aren't you? I can't abide a lazy wife."

She nodded, dragging herself from the covers and not missing the way he watched her as she crossed the room naked to retrieve her dressing gown from the back of her chair. He was ready to go, and it gratified her that he was having trouble leaving, dragging his feet as it were in reluctance to leave her. Once she belted her robe, she shooed him towards the door.

"Go on," she said with a smile. "You have men waiting on you as well. Have a good day."

He finally left her with a lingering kiss at the door, finally peeling her off with a bark of laughter as he made his way to his duties. She leaned against her door frame and watched him go, so intensely pleased to be standing there in the open without having to attempt to secret him out. She felt a plume of embarrassment knowing that when he met with Robb and Brynden Tully and her brother that they would know exactly where he'd been. Embarrassment and a strange satisfaction.

It was the same feeling she had as she entered Talisa Stark's rooms that morning, but the young queen had smiled softly at her entrance and not said a word. She didn't even cut her eyes at her in some knowing way, and Lenna loved her for it. She couldn't help but feel an overwhelming sense of gratitude for her kindness, and not least for her support, and Lenna felt that in the brief time they had known each other, they had become friends.

Perhaps it was their similar situations, both isolated and alone, their choices bringing grief to others even as they brought such pleasure and happiness to themselves, but Lenna had sense that Talisa Stark had not acted as her attendant the night before through any sense of obligation. She genuinely wanted to be there.

Lenna had been a bundle of nerves despite being overjoyed. Talisa had provided a quiet counterpoint to her agitation, her fingers carefully braiding her hair, eager to hear the story of the ribbon as she wove it into Lenna's crown. She had told Lenna of her own wedding, how she wished she'd had a friend to help her ready herself, and she detailed the ceremony at the weirwood.

She'd even tried to give Lenna advice- that sort of advice- but as soon as she began, Lenna laughed and colored, averting her eyes. Talisa looked vaguely surprised, her own cheeks darkening, but she had bitten her lip and said no more, content with helping her dress and walking together through the godswood.

Lenna felt as if what had then happened was but a dream. As she sat and rolled bandages with Talisa, the light spilling through the window beginning to take on the cold glint of autumn, she could hardly believe that her memory of warm candlelight and rough-voiced vows could be real. The whole of the ceremony had passed before her like a haze, and she was surprised and a bit dismayed at how little of it she remembered.

She had always thought that she would vividly recall her wedding. She could vividly recall other people's weddings, after all, but her own was a series of impressions, of feelings, and, more than anything, full gray eyes looking back at her with a solemnity that would silence the gods. There was no threat of it being stolen or lost to her, even as indistinct as it was. It was a dreamy remembering, and in the lockbox of her memory it held the place of honor, just as his ribbons, his antler, his notes had in the little box she'd secreted in her desk, unable to part with them even as they ran from King's Landing.

He slipped into their room after the small council dismissed, taking care to take a different path than she had. She waited for him nearly half an hour, wondering where he was and what had delayed him. He knocked once, and she called for him to enter without rising from her vanity. Talisa had offered to teach her how to plait her hair as she had the night before, and she was struggling before the glass, arms akimbo and beginning to ache.

"What are you doing?" he rumbled, closing the door and bolting it behind him. He stood with his back to it, a small smile playing across his face.

"Trying to recreate what Talisa did last night," she said, pursing her lips. "Trying and failing."

He came toward her slowly, placing his hands on her shoulders.

"I like it down," he said, leaning down and pressing his mouth to the top of her head. She looked at him in the glass, smiling as she reached up and squeezed his hand.

"You always have," she replied.

"Aye," he replied. "That first day, you came into Cersei's solar with it windblown, standing out about you."

"You remember that?" she asked, turning to look up at him. "I had almost forgotten myself. I didn't even change. I had no idea I was going to be brought straight to her. I was so startled to find myself in that room."

He chuckled. "You looked scared shitless." She looked up at him tersely. "Then you gathered yourself and walked into that room like it was where you belonged."

"What choice did I have?"

He cleared his throat. "None." His fingers were playing with the short curls about her face. "You made the best of it."

"Thanks to you," she replied softly.

He shook his head and sighed so heavily that she looked at him with concern.

"I'm late because the king wanted to discuss our next move. Against my brother."

She swallowed thickly, looking down at the wood of the vanity, trying to focus her suddenly racing thoughts on the swirling grain of the planks.

"And?" she asked tightly. "What has been decided?"

"I will ride out at the end of the week," he replied quietly. "Runners have brought back reports of the Brotherhood, and I will go find them. And we will scout the garrison at Harrenhal."

"Why did we offer you?" she asked suddenly. "The Brotherhood are as wont to kill you as talk to you." It had greatly troubled her, this idea of baiting the Brotherhood with Sandor. It was one thing to bait the Lannisters with her, knowing that she would be safely at a distance, but this plan involved Sandor leaving the safety of Riverrun and going into unfriendly territory, whether it was in search of the Brotherhood or to confront his brother. Neither option particularly comforted her.

"You know why it has to be me, Lenna," he said quietly, running his hand through his hair.

She fought not to cry, on some level understanding what he was saying even while the rest of her rejected it out of hand.

"He wants to kill you."

"And I want to kill him," he replied solemnly. "You know what I am."

She did, even if it was completely at odds with everything else she knew of him. She'd known of his feud with his brother for years, known how much he ached to settle that wrong. Now, she was thrown into the mix as well, and she knew that there would be no stopping him. There would be no rest.

"I could order you not to go," she whispered lowly, not looking at him. It was a cruel threat, and she knew it. She was not proud of herself for the suggestion that she would force him to make such a choice, between his oaths to her and his own conscience, but she wasn't strong enough to remain completely silent. She heard him turn on his heel, knew he was glaring at her.

"You wouldn't do that to me," he ground out, and the tone stung more than the words, a scrape on her bruising heart. "You know what I would choose. Would you make me an oathbreaker, Lenna?"

"But your oath was to me-" she pressed on, still not able to look at him, her voice tinny and weak in her own ears, a child's voice.

"Which is why I must do it," he rumbled.

"And when he is dead, then who will you go after?" she demanded.

"The whole world, if I have to," he replied, studying his hands. From another man, it might have been an overstatement, but she knew he was deadly serious. "Not until I know you are safe."

 _It will never end_ , she thought despondently.

"The end of the week, then?" she asked, swallowing thickly. He nodded. "Then we will have to make the best of what time we have," she said, making her voice cheerier than she felt.

"Aye," he said, glancing back at her with a crooked quirk of his lip. He moved slowly to her, hesitantly, fingers trailing from shoulder to wrist, drawing her to him.

After, he cradled her to him in his sleep. She was so wrapped in his arms that she dared not move, his breathing slow and even in her ears though she was wakeful and worried. She wondered at how quickly their joy had turned to pain, and she thought that perhaps she had made it worse by insisting on their marriage, that the bond between them would make their inevitable separation that much harder to bear. She turned her face so that she could see his, the lines on the unburned side of his face smoothed in sleep, his mouth parted and his breath coming in the heavy puffs of deep sleep. Despite herself, she smiled a little, wishing she had the talent of resting as he did, content in that moment and not thinking about the future.

He'd told her once that she thought too much, and she was quite sure that he was right. If she was able to do as he did, to focus only on the now, perhaps she wouldn't feel quite so overshadowed. She buried her nose in his shoulder, inhaling the scent of him, that constancy of sweat and soap and steel. It was enough to make her eyes smart, and she lay awake for a long time, unable to do anything but ponder upon the idea that perhaps their lives were to be long stretches of great pain, punctuated by periods of even greater joy.

Sandor XLVIII

He'd had no illusions that the afterglow of their marriage would last very long, even if he suspected Lenna had believed that it would suddenly make everything alright. Despite being so smart it made his head hurt, she still persisted in believing that things would get better. He didn't, nor did he expect them to. He only took what he was offered as it was presented, his greatest hope being to have one more day, one more hour, one more breath with her. If anything, he thought that their marriage would complicate things, make it even more difficult than before. Not that feeling that way had prevented him from taking the opportunity. If he was going to die, he wanted to do so knowing that she'd been his, even for a little while.

The raven from Tywin Lannister came the next afternoon. The maester brought it into the small council room where the King and his men were busy looking at their maps. Sandor thought they spent far too much time looking at them as it was, and he was leaning against the window frame with his arms folded across his chest, a scowl on his face. It was a waste of his time, making him stand and listen to them bicker. He'd rather be with his men in the yards, or, better yet, tossing his new wife around their bedchamber while he still had the chance.

He recognized the seal on the damn scroll at once, his arms relaxing by his sides as he went still as a sentry, back rigid and the old tension creeping into his tendons and muscle.

"From the Lannisters, your grace," the maester said. "For Lady Helenna."

The robed man held it out to the king, but Robb looked to Sandor instead.

"Fetch your wife, Clegane," he said lowly. "It is hers to open, after all."

Sandor grunted, immediately striding to the door and down the hallways. He didn't bother trying to sneak through them, but when he reached her room, he found it empty, the door ajar. She wasn't in the queen's rooms either, but the frightened maid he encountered in the passage managed to indicate, with a great deal of stuttering, that her mistress and Lenna were walking in the godswood.

He walked with single-minded purpose, his shoulders hunched and his fists balled at his sides. The mere sight of that sigil had made his muscles bunch, his head becoming so heavy he hunched his shoulders as if about to go on he offense against a foe. He cursed the damn lions as he went, bitterness like blood in his mouth.

Stalking through the godswood, he tried to ignore the sounds of the birds, the sigh of the wind through the trees. All the things that she loved, had always loved, about being outdoors. When he heard her laughing voice ahead of him, answered with the darker thrum of the queen's reply, he froze.

 _You're about to break her goddamn spell_ , he thought suddenly. It was a foolish notion, but it was the truth. She'd cast some magic about them, made him happy, made them both happy with a set of words in a Sept, cloaks and a feast, hands and lips and sighs in their chamber, and as soon as he delivered this message, it would be over. It would be broken.

 _He_ would be broken, even more than he already was.

He couldn't do it. He could not put one foot in front of the other, could not carry his message. He didn't know what was in Tywin Lannister's scroll, but he wasn't going to like it. It would spell a hardship. All tidings from them did.

"Sandor?"

He looked up, only then realizing that he had been studiously glaring at a boulder, his hands so tight they hurt, the short nails biting into his palms. When he looked up, she was standing there in the path before him, her arms full of wildflowers, her hair about her face. The queen stood at her elbow, the younger woman's smooth brow set in resignation, a knowing in her eyes that he would put into Lenna's.

He took a deep breath before he replied, taking in the way she looked. The dappled eyes were at home in this strange godswood, more meadow and forest than garden. Her mouth was still laughing, dimples in rosy cheeks, and the light- gods, he couldn't stand the light.

"You've received a raven," he said bitterly. "From Tywin."

The light receded more slowly than he would have expected, and it was like seeing her being drained. The color faded from her cheek, the dimple disappeared, and Sandor felt his throat clench, the old familiar obstruction settling in his gorge, new pain gurgling up in his belly.

"Then we should go to the king," she replied quietly, but she did not step toward him. Instead, she stood rooted to the ground, the knuckles that clutched her flowers a livid white, the wind whipping her skirts around her legs, making her hair stream back from her face, almost as if pushing her away from him, away from whatever it was lay before them.

He wished he could steal her again, carry her away with the wind, as far from these people and this place as he could. But he knew that he couldn't. Then he felt the force of the wind against his own back, pushing him towards her. _Do it_. He took a step forward, limply extending a hand. He closed his eyes briefly when her cold, still fingers came to rest in his paw, and the look he didn't know exactly what the look that he exchanged with the queen meant, but he couldn't ponder it, not and keep his equanimity.

It was a kindness that the queen shielded their joined hands as they made their way back through the Keep. Lenna was clutching his fingers so tightly that it hurt, and he wondered a little at the strength of her. She never failed to surprise him, and glancing down he saw the woman who had stood before him in the throne room King's Landing, her shoulders drawn back, her chin up, waiting for a blade, a condemnation.

When they entered the small council room, Robb Stark was sitting in his chair looking down at the scroll with a scowl. Brynden Tully and Wendel were both waiting by the window, arms crossed over their chests and dark expressions on their faces. They both glanced at her hand in his, and Wendel's eyes were full of pain when they met Sandor's. Pain, and a measure of sympathy that he needed and rejected at the same time.

Beside him, Lenna withdrew her hand and folded both of her in front of her, straightening her spine in that way he never could help but admire. She put on her ladyship, her calm, and her strength, and he felt small standing next to her, knowing that for all he was a survivor, her grace was something he lacked. But when she stood beside him thus, she was no longer Lenna, and he didn't care for it one bit.

"There has been a raven, your grace?" she asked quietly.

Without a word, Robb handed the scroll to her. Lenna held it carefully, and he was reminded forcefully of the morning the black-banded scroll had been brought to her in Cersei's solar. She brushed her fingers over the seal, the waxen lion's claws sharp, and he was sure she was thinking of the same. Still, she did not break it.

"It was sent to you. You should be the first to read it," the king replied quietly. Lenna looked back at the young man blankly, but with a dash of determination, she ran her finger under the seal and broke it, bending her attention to the scrawled missive.

"Well?" Wendel asked, turning to face her.

If possible, more color had drained from her cheeks. She looked even more as if she'd been chiseled from marble, stony and chilled. Her eyes, when she raised them, were like stone, too. She looked so much like the statue at her mother's crypt that he shuddered.

"Lord Tywin writes that he will not negotiate for the boys," she said quietly, a faint tremor in her fingers. "We may execute them for all he cares. As for me," she paused, taking in a deep breath, "he bids me go to White Harbor and wait for further instructions."

Sandor groaned, but he wasn't sure if it was from relief or disappointment. This daft scheme of using her to bait them wasn't to be, and for that he was obscenely grateful. In White Harbor, she would be as far away as she could possibly be from all this madness, even though he wasn't sure if being separated from her wasn't going to kill him.

"He thinks to turn you spy," Robb spat, his face contorting in anger and disbelief. "We were to use you as bait-"

"He has other plans," Lenna replied woodenly. "We had no assurances that it would work, your grace. But he wishes me to go to White Harbor. I'm to send word of my arrival before your uncle's wedding."

Sandor had doubted that it would work to begin with. He saw the value in Tywin's wishes now. With her in White Harbor, she was poised between the two factions in a way that would allow him to capitalize on her in a way he couldn't while she was in Riverrun. He still thought her loyal, and Sandor was sure that Wyman Manderly, no fool in his own right, would find a way to hedge his bets and mitigate his risks.

It might even prove useful to the Northerners, if they played it correctly.

"Why would he possibly want-" Robb snarled.

"He thinks Lenna can bend our father's ear," Wendel replied, saving Sandor the effort. She looked at Sandor, the mottled green and amber clinging to his, begging him for something he couldn't give her.

"Tywin knows that my father has a soft spot for Lenna," Wendel continued. "He was able to control us for many years by using her as a pawn. If Lenna goes to White Harbor, she will be in a position to send information to Tywin and also to serve as his instrument."

"But she isn't his instrument-" the king interjected.

"Will you go?" Talisa Stark asked, ignoring her husband as a little divot between her sleek brows.

"I do not see what choice I have," Lenna replied unhappily, and Sandor briefly touched her waist. "If I do not, I will lose what little influence I have with them. So yes, I will go to White Harbor."

"And then what?" Robb asked incredulously. "Report information to him?"

"Wyman Manderly knows the benefit of feeding Tywin what he wants to hear," Sandor said quietly. All the eyes in the room turned to look at him. "I was sent with Lenna years ago as a guard. And to gather information for him. Lord Manderly gave me what I wanted without question. I would be happier knowing that she was there instead of here, anyway. She'll be safe, at least."

 _She will be safe. And so far away._

"Will you take me?" she asked quietly, and he felt like the ground had opened up beneath his feet.

"No," he replied. "I have my own business here. I'll join you when the king gives me leave to do so."

"Then who?" she asked so quietly it was nothing more than a whisper, her lips white.

"I'll go with her," Wendel said. "I'll take her home."

"And when she gets there," Robb said, raking a hand through his hair. "How are we supposed to play this? It can't possibly be to our advantage."

"But it will be, your grace," Lenna said, a little of the strength returning to her cheeks. "The Lannisters do not doubt me, at least I do not think they do. You do not doubt me. Perhaps I can broker-"

"I will not negotiate with him," Robb said gravely. "I am done negotiating."

"As far as I can tell, you haven't done any negotiating," Sandor bit out. "You've sat in this castle and looked at your maps-"

"Careful, Clegane," Robb said, blue eyes aflame.

Sandor clamped his jaw tight.

"All is not hopeless," Lenna said quietly, drawing their eyes back to her. She was looking out the window now, the scroll still loosely caged in her fingers, like it was a bird. "He says something else, though he does not write it. Something that I had worried over."

"What is that?" the king asked, his boyish face darkened.

"Sandor told me once that I was theirs," she replied, her lips barely moving, a quirk of her lip that felt like a dagger in his breast. "Tywin believes it to be so. My raven was sent in secret, your grace. This one comes to your maester. He is not seeking to hide that he is writing, and more importantly, that he is writing to me."

"He is using you," Sandor growled.

"Aye," she replied. "He always has, has he not? And he wants you all to know. He's still holding me captive, you see. From afar. It is a good thing."

"How can such a thing be good-" Robb spat out.

"Because it keeps me between you," she replied, looking back at Robb. "I am not a Lannister. Nor am I Stark, or a Manderly. I am nothing."

"You are a Clegane," Sandor whispered, and her eyes warmed when she cut them at him.

"So, I will do as we have always done," she replied. "I'll watch. And I'll wait. And when the time comes-" she trailed off, looking again out the window. "When the time comes, I beg you all to trust me."

"Your allegiance is not in doubt, my lady," Robb said quietly. "You have been poorly used."

Lenna and the queen exchanged a look then, and Sandor wondered at it.

"Thank you, your grace. My allegiance is to us all," she said evenly. "I can only hope to be of use, even if this poor scheme of mine has not worked as I had wished."

Sandor was fiercely glad that it hadn't, even if it meant that he'd have to watch her leave him.

"You'll be on the road at the end of the week," Robb said quietly. "My uncle's wedding will take place next month. If you make good time, Wendel, you can join us at the Twins once you have delivered your sister home."

"Aye, my lord," Wendel replied. "I will do as I may."

She had moved to the window again. It was open, the breeze stirring the curls that had slipped free about her face. Her lips were slightly parted, and the late afternoon sunlight was kind to her, tinting her face gold and rose, but it did nothing to alleviate the pinched worry around her eyes, that drew her dark brows together. He knew he probably looked like a fool, standing there and staring at her like he was, his chest tight and thick, his gaze greedy.

He didn't want to remember her like this, but he knew that this was the image of Lenna that he'd have to carry with him. It had kept him moving for so long, the ache in his breast and his belly when he thought of that look of constant strain and worry, the way it settled over her lovely features like some sort of veil. Her eyes were looking ahead, and he knew her mind was busy with thoughts of the future, and that alone was his comfort. Lenna did not look back, she only faced forward.

 _Tenacity_ , he thought bitterly and affectionately, the sound of her voice in his ears from so long ago. Sitting on the deck of that ship, her red book in his hands as he butchered the words in his mouth, unaccustomed to reading out loud, of reading at all, and her little chin pressed unexpectedly into his shoulder, her hand slipping into the crook of his arm. She had corrected him, and he had not recoiled from it, a warmth in his belly as he savored her warmth beside him, her voice instructive and almost conspiratorial as she explained that word and what it mean.

" _Persistent," she had said. "If you have tenacity, you are determined_."

And so he was, and so she was. Together they left the small council chamber and made their way back to their room. Her hand was wrapped up in his, their fingers intertwined, a coal burning beneath his breastbone as he opened the door and led her to their bed, not bothering to speak.

One week. A handful of days. Sandor Clegane had never thought about what he wanted. He'd spent the majority of his years refusing his own desires, thinking that wanting something, anything, beyond one more morning, one more day, was for someone other than him. But as his hands traced her skin, her lips under his, he clenched his eyes tightly closed and he froze.

He had caught her other hand in his, or rather he'd tried to, but her fingers were tightly closed around something. He lifted her hand, noting that she would not look at him, turning it over and unfolding her fingers from whatever it was she grasped.

The crumpled parchment lay in her palm.

"I did not lie," she said unevenly, relinquishing the scroll and leaning back from him. "I have never lied."

He felt like a snake had taken up residence in his breast, coiling and twisting about his innards and squeezing. He couldn't even take a good breath before he unrolled it, Tywin Lannister's scratchy script like scars on the parchment, violent and slashing.

 _Dear unhappy lady,_

 _We are all relieved to hear that you are quite safe, though I will not speculate nor speak of what you have endured. I can also not pretend to regret what has befallen. It is most fortunate in its way, is it not? You have escaped your betrothal to the Mountain quite handily, and will be of more use than I could have hoped for being where you are._

 _Unfortunately, dear girl, I will not ransom you back, no matter how much my daughter has entreated me to do so. The same is the case with the boys. They are useless to us- the Starks may do with them as they please. As for you, I would think you'll be sent home. Go back to White Harbor directly, and wait for instructions there. Your father is a man of sense, even if he allows himself to be often ruled by foolishness. Accept no delays, do not tarry on your way. I will expect to hear from you before Edmure Tully's marriage in the Twins._

 _Remember the Reynes, dear girl. We do not forget those who have wronged us and ours._

 _Tywin Lannister_

"No, you didn't lie," he said lowly, his brow drawn together. "Does he mean that last bit to make you feel better?"

She shook her head. "I do not know. Sandor," she whispered. "Turn it over."

His brow furrowed in confusion, and he felt a dull headache start behind his eyes. When he turned the parchment over, he was greeted by the sight of Cersei Lannister's flowing script, ornate and delicate, beautiful and biting.

 _Dearest Lenna,_

 _We rejoice to hear you are safe, and despair that you have been separated from us. You have ever been our faithful friend, and while we have been assured that there is no way to return you to us at this time, know that you are in our prayers. We will not forget this trespass._ _His head will be mounted on the capital gates before this war is over._

She didn't sign it, she didn't need to. When he looked back up at Lenna, her eyes were shining, full to the brimming.

"She's put an order out-"

"There was always an order out," he replied, crumpling the damn scroll in his fingers. He took two strides toward the fire and threw it into the flames, bracing a hand on the mantle as he watched it burn. "From the moment we left the city gates, we've known there was a price on my head. This is nothing new."

But now his chest was full of flame, his innards turned to bubbling pitch. He was breathing heavily as he watched the fire, recoiling from it's heat as it licked across the scars and reminded him of who and what he was.

He'd allowed himself to believe, if only for a handful of days, that he would be something other than what he was. _Folly_ , he cursed to himself. It was folly to believe he could ever be more than the Hound.

He hated them, and he'd kill them all if he had the chance. He knew that she believed that they could be reasoned with, that she could negotiate with them. The only negotiation they understood was made with the point of a sword. Clever scheming aside, the Lannisters hadn't won their place through circumspect talk, through diplomacy. They'd won it by manipulation and force.

"You won't get them to listen to you," he said roughly, standing and dragging a hand through his hair. "Go home. Do as he bids, but don't keep thinking that you can fix this. You can't."

"I could try-"

"You did try," he thundered, turning back to her. "You did try, Lenna, and it didn't work. It won't work. They don't care about peace, or making amends. They only want more, and if you are in the way, they will not hesitate to hurt you. You know this. Fuck it all, Lenna, you _know this_." His shoulders had crept up to his ears, and he was trembling to keep himself from shouting, though he was aware that his voice was choked. She was an arm's-length away, looking up at him with her face open and so full of despair. Something cracked in him sharply, and he laid his hand on her cheek, finding the gentleness he only had for her and pressing his fingertips into the smooth skin of her face.

That joy had been so brief, and he wanted to rage against it being taken away. It was one thing for him to suffer, he deserved it, but that she should continuously be brought so low, made so unhappy, it was almost more than he could bear. His eyes were burning with the effort to keep them open, but he refused to blink, memorizing the look of concern and worry on her face.

He'd thought earlier that he didn't want to remember her like this, her face full of despair, even as he knew that it would fuel him. He had wanted to remember her joyful, her hair around her shoulders and laughter in her mouth. He had wanted to remember the sound of her voice when she sang, the feeling of her soft hand in his, her sighs in his lungs when he kissed her. Those memories would stay with him, he'd carry them, but this- _this-_ was what he needed to remember. The crease of worry between her brows, the mottled storm in her eyes. He needed to hold that image closest, to remind him of what he must do.

"Sandor?" she asked, her voice a pale, small thing, her lips hardly moving. "Sandor, don't look like that."

Her voice was trembling, as were her fingers as they ghosted over his face, fluttering like moths against his skin. He was still looking at her unblinkingly, numb to the ache that radiated from his breastbone and through his veins. An ache that would make him strong.

"Sandor-" she said, her eyes welling with tears, and they spilled without her blinking, caught in her lashes like dew, mottled eyes looking into his with such pain that left him breathless.

"Not here," he replied, wishing again for words. She wasn't going to cry. They were not going to waste their time with weeping. He felt keenly that the hourglass had been turned, the sand trickling out, steady and unstoppable. He would not let it be marred like this. "Not yet."

"Your face-"

"I thought you'd gotten used to it," he growled, his lip crooking into a smirk that was more of a snarl.

"Whatever you're thinking, Sandor-"

"I only ever think of you," he replied.

It was perhaps the truest thing he'd ever said, though he might have barked in derision at it in his past. She froze, the tears in her eyes fading, a blush creeping over her cheeks, her mouth again plump and rosy as cherries, her lips parted as her breathing came faster.

He didn't let her speak again, bringing her to him with crushing force and with one goal in his mind. He was going to make her forget. She was going to forget everything except for him, everything ugly and dangerous and sad. He'd convince her it was all a bad dream with lips and hands and what soft words he could muster. And then, when they were parted, he was going to remember the way she looked just then, all despair and pain, and he was going to make sure nothing could ever hurt her again, even if he had to bring the whole bloody world down around their ears.

A/N: I'm back! Thanks for your patience. I have missed working on this these last few weeks, but the trip was well worth it, and I'm feeling ever so refreshed and rather inspired. I'm so glad everyone enjoyed the previous chapter! I also hope you didn't think everything was going to be sunshine and roses going forward...but never fear. I'm still wholeheartedly committed to a happy ending. It's just going to be another dozen chapters or two.

Read and Review! I love hearing from you! I have a couple of different avenues I am contemplating, so if you have an idea you'd like to contribute, be sure to let me know! Should have another installment up within the next week.


	49. Chapter 49

Lenna XLIX

It was if she could feel time passing, the inevitable morning when he would ride one direction and she the other stalking them like a lion or a wolf. It crawled across her skin, skittered up her backbone. She hated it, knowing that there was nothing she could do to stop it. When she tried to talk to Sandor, he shushed her, distracted her, and she was left with a darkness that she shoved to the back of her mind as best she could.

She spent the following days fretfully sewing in the queen's solar while the men continued to plot. Along with Lady Catelyn, they were busy working on a wardrobe. She would need enough gowns in woolen to get her from Riverrun to her father in White Harbor. Where once such a task would have at least brought her contentment, every stitch seemed another moment lost. She'd pricked her fingers so often that they were calloused and sore, and she found herself pressing them to test the pain long into the night.

"Why not have a seamstress do it?" Sandor asked, bussing her fingertips with his lips as they sat on their bed. She had been pressing them to her own mouth, almost grateful for the discomfort that cut through the strange, buzzing numbness of her effort not to think of the future. There was no point in ignoring it now. He would ride the next day, and she and her brother would set out by midday. With only a short amount of time left, Sandor been insistent that they withdraw directly after dinner, skipping the small council meeting that evening, bolting the door against any knocks and keeping her greedily to himself. Not that she minded.

"We do have one," she replied. "But there are plenty of uniforms to make up as well. You're to march in the morning, or have you forgotten?"

It was a poor jest, and his face fell.

"I've not forgotten," he replied, the shadow falling across the ridges and plans of the scar. Sandor had taken care to keep his expression neutral with her in the wake of Tywin Lannister's raven. More than neutral, he'd been almost pleasant, and she'd seen through the farce almost immediately. She knew he was doing it for her, trying hard to, for once, be the one who kept them buoyant. Gratitude rushed through her at the effort, her own struggle testing her ability to hold onto the bright fluttering that threatened to escape her grip, fickle as a bird.

He had taken to talking more when it was the two of them, his hands always on her in some way, telling her about his men and what they planned to do, where he planned to go. He spoke of days to come, and while he meant it to be a comfort, he could not have guessed how that had increased the weight in her chest. Sandor Clegane was not a man who made plans for the future, and that he was doing so now set her at odds with herself.

 _He's distracting you_ , she thought, and she loved him for it even as it increased the strange tremble in her entrails.

"You're to go to Harrenhal," she said lightly, drawing her finger down his throat from his chin, "and I'm to go to the Twins first, then White Harbor."

"You'll have to beat the Freys off you with a stick," he said, almost genially, warmth and humor returning, the harshness of the scar smoothing. "They sniffed around you a few years ago. I won't have that."

She smiled despite herself. The night they had quarreled, after Joffrey's nameday tourney, she had danced with what felt like every young Frey in the Seven Kingdoms.

"I don't know," she replied with a smirk, "I might get lonely on the road. You wouldn't begrudge me a dance, would you?"

She was playing with fire, and they both knew it. Sandor's jealousy that night had started them on the path that had led them to this place, their mirrored anger and hurt, along with their subsequent reconciliation, pushing them together despite their reticence and fear.

He grunted, his eyes flashing at her. "Nothing more than a dance," he replied with half a smirk. Then his eyes went serious, all humor fled. "You would do well to remember that you're mine."

"Yes," she replied breathlessly. As if she could forget. "I'm yours."

His face was full of fire and he was on her again. He was insatiable. If she'd thought he'd been attentive before, in the short week since their marriage she had lost count of the times that he'd snuck into her rooms at midday or woken her in the wee hours for another tumble in their sheets, not to mention the usual after-dinner activities. He was certainly achieving his ends, if it was his intention to distract her from their impending separation. She was exhausted and sore in the most blissful way, his ministrations succeeding in keeping her thoughts and her focus solely on him.

It had the added benefit of making him ferociously happy. It was evident in the intense lines of his face, the vibration of his fingertips on her skin, the playfulness that seeped into him as he relished not having to sneak in and out of their chambers. Despite keeping their marriage quiet, they were in no danger in that Keep. Even the servants kept their distance, Lenna ringing for a maid when she needed to dress or bathe, but otherwise left alone.

Reality and the knowledge that he would leave in the morning came stampeding back even as he worked his mouth against the place on her neck that made her whimper.

"And you will go to Harrenhal and find this Brotherhood," she persisted, pushing him away by the shoulders with a sighing giggle, not yet ready to go too far in that direction. He wore her out when he put his mind to it, and she wanted to delay sleep as long as possible tonight. There was no reason to rush the dawn. She wanted to be wrapped up in him, of course, but she needed more time to enjoy him with his clothes on first. She traced her fingertip over the ridge of his good brow, memorizing him in the same way he'd always tried to commit her face to his memory. Her heart gave a painful leap. "And then you will come to White Harbor."

A muscle shuddered in his jaw, his lips pressing together. She drew her finger across his mouth, again admiring its graceful curve. She'd always thought his mouth was beautiful. "As soon as I can," he said, pressing his lips to her finger.

"As soon as you can," she repeated with a smile, running her hands into his hair. "Before Yule, I hope." A veil settled over his face, carefully schooled into his least threatening brooding. She pressed on. "I have grand plans of roasting apples in the Great Hearth in the Merman's Court, of plying you with good black ale and oysters." He smiled half-heartedly as she whispered to him conspiratorially. "You know what they say about oysters," she grinned saucily, looking up at him from under her lashes, knowing how he liked it when she teased him. Not tonight. He grunted, her flirtation falling flat.

"I'll do what I can," he replied softly, making no promises. Part of her wished that he would, while another piece of her was grateful that he didn't. It would be too hard if he had to break one, never having failed her before. She didn't think she could bear it if he said he'd be home before Yule and didn't make it in time.

"I know you will," she said, with far more brightness than she felt. "And I'll continue to hope that all will be as it should."

His grip around her waist tightened and he pressed his lips to her crown. She closed her eyes and refused to frown, feeling the tension in her cheeks against the strain.

"Aye," he replied, his mouth against her hair, his grip on her tight. "That's your job. You hope and you wait." She sighed. "No more meddling."

She was glad that he could not see her face, because he would have read her heart there. Sandor had been vocal in his opposition to her being involved in anything beyond the basic orders that Tywin Lannister would doubtless send her at her father's castle. He had been vehement in his insistence that she have as little contact with them as possible. She had even loved him a little more for it, if such a thing were possible,

But Lenna had no intention of not 'meddling,' as he put it. She knew that his worry stemmed from a very real well of fear, of anxiety. She was not out of danger, and they both knew it, just as they knew that his riding to Harrenhal was extremely risky. It took great strength of will to turn her thoughts from that line of thinking. He'd extracted her promise to think as little on it as possible, and she was doing her best to keep her word. It did neither of them any good to dwell of their parting.

Or the possibility of not meeting again.

She burrowed a little more snugly into the warmth of his side.

"I'll hope and I'll wait," she said softly, turning to bury her face in the crook of his shoulder, his fingers making their way into her hair. It had grown in the months since he'd been forced to cut it, almost brushing her shoulders. The curls loved his fingers, twining about them tenaciously, and he seemed to love having his hands twisted up in their warmth.

She sat up quickly and went to her desk, aware of his eyes on her back. She took out a pair of scissors from the drawer, a neat little set with a wicked point, and smiled at him as he looked back at her perplexed. She almost went to select and cut the lock herself, but thought the better of it, returning to the bed and sitting beside him again.

"I always liked it in the stories when knights would ride off with locks of their ladies' hair against their hearts," she said quietly, blushing and feeling rather foolish. "I'd have you carry mine. If you would."

He took the scissors from her, comically small in his enormous hand, and he chose a curl. Stretching it out, he let it wrap itself around his finger. It gave her ample opportunity to admire the hands she loved so well, massive but beautifully sculpted, calloused but strangely fine. Her hair caught on the rough pads of his fingers as he brought it closer to his face, careful as he raised the scissors.

She hoped that he was not thinking of shearing her hair in the throne room, knowing that the act had cost him more than he would, or even could, articulate. She watched his face as he snipped it free, the shortened hair springing back in a loose coil. He held the lock in front of his eyes for a moment, his forehead furrowed, looking at how the dark curl was twined around his finger as the scissors fell uselessly to the counterpane.

"Here," she said, taking the bit of hair from him. She returned to the desk and pulled out his red ribbon. "Do you mind if I cut it?"

He shook his head, and she used the scissors to cut a short length of it, just long enough to tie the strands together. She returned with it outstretched on her palm. He looked at her for a long moment, then reached into his jerkin pocket and pulled out her handkerchief, the tip of his nose going pink.

She smiled as she accepted it, the fabric soft against her fingers, the embroidery dingy from laying so close to his body for so long, his sweat having stained it despite the repeated washings she knew he'd given it. She lay it open in her palm, tucking the lock of hair in it and folding the handkerchief over it, pressing it to her lips before offering it back to him. He was studiously looking down as he accepted it, the muscles of his face pulsing as he tightened his jaw.

"I'd have the same of you," she said softly, and he lifted his eyes to hers. She picked up the scissors again, and picked up a length of his hair. She'd always rather liked it, surprised by the wave in it. He was such a fierce man, and always had been, but the undulation in his dark hair had always seemed to soften him, just marginally. She snipped a length of it off and looked at it laying across her palm.

She returned to the desk and retrieved his green ribbon, the first one he'd ever given her. She held it up, fingers toying with the frayed end, and when she turned, she found he was watching her with grey eyes that could be glistening in the candlelight, but she couldn't tell.

"I always refused to trim this," she said, running her fingertip along where the fabric had split, the threads of gold standing out more stiffly from their green brethren. "Wynna tried to make me do it in White Harbor, but I wouldn't."

"Why?" he asked, swallowing hard. His face was taut with tension, and there was so much she wanted to tell him, to have him hear before he left, but such an unburdening would feel too final.

"It felt wrong," she replied. "I told her it was a gift, that she should just tuck the ends in. Really, I think I felt it was part of you. She guessed it was you who had given it. She asked me that same night if you loved me."

"Did you know?" he asked, eyes burning into hers.

"No," she replied. "And when she asked me if I loved you, I-"

"She asked you the same?"

Lenna smiled, looking down at his hair in her hand, tracing her finger over it rather than looking at him. She was blushing like a girl.

"I tiptoed around my answer in such a way that I am quite sure that she knew, even if I did not."

"I couldn't admit it yet," he replied lowly, "but I did, Lenna. I did when I gave it to you, even."

She felt her heart expand in her chest and she bit her lip. "I know. I know that, Sandor. And I knew that very night Wynna asked, because I sang and I couldn't do anything but think of you. I was just too afraid to name it. Too afraid of what might happen if I did."

Another time he might have looked away, but he didn't this time, keeping his gaze steadily on hers. He reached his hand out and she passed him the ribbon, the fabric tawny in the hearthlight. He measured a length of it and snipped it, big fingers strangely dexterous as he tied it in a bow. She handed him his handkerchief, the one he had given her in the crypts, and he repeated the same gesture of folding it carefully inside and pressing it to his lips.

"I'm doing it for you, Lenna," he said thickly, handing it back to her. The effort of his words was plainly evident to her. She knew how much he hated talking about such things. "I don't want to leave you, but I have to-"

"It's alright, Sandor," she replied, forcing herself to believe it, taking the hand that held her handkerchief between both of hers. He was still sitting on the edge of the bed as she stood before him. She traced his cheek, but he was still staring at her feet intently. "I am not angry, or disappointed, or...anything but proud of you."

His head came up abruptly, a look of astonishment on his face. "Proud?" he said, as if such an idea were foreign to him.

"Yes," she said, laying her hand along his scarred cheek. "You are leaving because you are honorable and good, and-"

"I'm not honorable or good," he protested vehemently, but his own hand came up to cover hers and press it more firmly to his face.

"Yes," she insisted, leaning down and pressing her forehead to his. Even standing before him, he was so tall that when she stooped that their were eyes were level. "You are. You have always looked after me, kept me safe, helped me and cared for me-"

"I'm selfish," he whispered harshly. "I only did it because I-"

"You love me," she finished for him when his voice cut out. "Love is good, Sandor. It makes you good."

She had resolved she was not going to cry, that this last evening of theirs would not be disfigured by tears. She was finding it almost impossible to fend them off.

"I'm a killer," he said benignly, addressing the stone floor again, "I'm a sellsword and a traitor, a brute who doesn't deserve-"

"Not another word," she said harshly, at a loss as to why he was saying such things. "I don't believe that, Sandor Clegane. Which is why you must come back to me. You must." She knew that her voice had gone thick, the pitch higher than her usual. Her eyes were starting to smart and she bit down on her lower lip to drive the tears back down.

"As my lady commands," he said softly, with a quirk of his lip, wrapping his arm around her waist as he drew her to him, his face pressed to her abdomen.

They took their time, and Lenna was moved by the lingering care in how he touched her, how he spoke in her ear. His whisperings left her feeling like a candle had been lit in the center of her chest. Instead of teasing her with talk of what he wanted to do to her as he usually did, Sandor Clegane talked of dreams instead. Not hopes, nothing so frivolous could come from his lips, but actual dreams he'd had of her, of them, of their children and a time when the violence was over. She knew it cost him to speak like that, but rather than feeling like farewell, she had the distinct impression that he was planning for the future.

The future was not something that he ever spoke of, and both gave Lenna heart and set her off-balance as she lay next to him as he drifted to sleep. Though it almost frightened her, she could not resist the temptation to plan with him. He'd fought against his own exhaustion as she continued to talk to him, his replies becoming dreamy and indistinct as she prattled on foolishly about children's names, his keep in the Westerlands, her family's affection for him. The crags of his face, even the scar, relaxed finally in sleep, and Lenna lay her head against his shoulder, a strange quivering ache in her belly.

Morning came too quickly, and a single, solid knock roused them both. They didn't answer it, knowing it was Wendel sent to wake Sandor. He sat up slowly in the bed, looking down at her in the pillows.

"Don't get up yet," he said quietly, rising and going about his morning routine as if it were any other day. She watched as he splashed his face and wiped himself down with a cloth, as he pulled on his trousers and tunic and boots. He sat on the edge of the bed and did the laces, his hair falling in a curtain around his face.

When he was dressed, he turned to face her. Even though he didn't have his armor on yet, it was the Hound that looked back at her.

"You can't come to the courtyard," he said flatly.

"I know," she replied, feeling choked, pulling the coverlet up under her chin.

"Don't do something foolish like watch me ride off," he growled. "I won't look back."

"I know you won't," she smiled. "But I'll watch you all the same."

"Please, Lenna," he said, his face crumpling. "Stay here. Don't-"

She silenced him by climbing out of the bed and stopping his mouth with hers.

"Don't you dare say goodbye," she whispered. "This is not goodbye."

His nostrils flared and he let out a tremendous breath as he leaned his forehead against hers.

"I won't say it then," he replied, pulling back from her and straightening his shoulders. Lenna shrugged on her robe and caught her handkerchief from where it lay on the side table.

"Here," she said, tucking it inside the left breast of his hauberk. "I'll only say one more thing, Sandor Clegane." He looked at her, grey eyes gleaming. "I love you, and you're always in my prayers."

He kissed her forcefully then, his hands in her hair, palms cradling her jaw, and it was like a shattering when he abruptly pulled away from her and strode out of the door. Lenna stood in their rooms feeling bereft, taking a long moment before finding the willpower to dress herself.

She sat at the window and focused on breathing as she looked out into the little godswood. When the time came for him to ride, she rose and went to the wardrobe, pulling out her cloak. As she did so, her fingers brushed the yellow and black that she had made for him, and in a moment of rashness, she took it out instead. Turning it inside out, Lenna fastened it at her throat and made her way to the ramparts above the causeway.

If he looked back, she knew she would look like some sort of crow, some sort of raven, the black silk in such stark contrast to the creamy stone. She would look like a mourner, but if he looked back, she wanted him to know she was wearing his cloak. The yellow and black might be concealed, turned in close to her body, but he'd know.

For a moment, her mind flashed to her younger days when she had sighed over scenes like these in her books. She thought of how romantic it had seemed when the ladies watched their men ride off to war, weeping and fluttering their handkerchiefs. It didn't feel romantic now, her hands full of the yellow wool and black silk as she watched him on Stranger, riding at the head of his column of men, his back to her resolutely. The stiffness in his shoulders told her what she needed to know. He was very aware that she was standing there, but he was going to keep his word and not look back at her. It wasn't a romantic feeling at all, standing there unable to breathe and perversely unable to cry. Something in her stretched tight and thin as the distance between them increased.

But it didn't break.

Sandor

He did not look back. If he'd looked back it would have felt like goodbye, and he had made the decision that it was not going to be the last time he saw her. He'd made a decision, and he'd made a deal. He didn't believe in the gods, but he'd told them, if they were listening, that he'd be on their right side if only they let him come back to her. He snickered darkly at his own foolishness. He doubted anyone was listening, and if they were, with his luck, it was the Stranger. Fat lot of good that would do him.

He could feel her eyes on him, had spotted her on the ramparts immediately when he turned to speak with one of his men. It reminded him too much of one of her damn stories, the lady watching as her knight rode off to war. She was cloaked in black, and he knew it was their marriage cloak. He didn't know whether it pleased him or saddened him or angered him, Lenna taking that risk, reminding them both of the increased stakes. _At least she's not waving a handkerchief_ , he thought brutally, _and pretending I'm some cunt knight_.

He was no knight, he reminded himself savagely, brow darkening as it became harder and harder to resist the urge to look back at her. Instead, he shook the thought from his head with as much animosity as he could muster, and turned his sole focus on the road before him, on the road away from her.

The farewell in their room was like to break him. He had dreaded such a parting for going on ten years, always managing to stave it off by this measure or that. The only time he could think of that he'd been physically away from her had been the two weeks that preceded King Robert's death.

This separation would be much longer, and he was sure that they both knew it.

He hadn't slept well the night before, and neither had she, alternating between pleasurable pursuits and whisperings. She'd never been one to hold back her words, and he'd never been able to keep his mind out of his hands. Together, they had created some language that they both understood, and they had spent the night before in constant communication, napping here or there, but wakeful and aware of each other.

He'd told her things that he'd never imagined saying out loud. He still struggled to tell her that he loved her, let alone anything else. He'd managed to tell her, of course, to say that he wanted her, in his home, in his bed. But he'd always relied on her to fill in the rest. But last night, he'd told her of all the dreams he'd had of her, the ones of her in his bed when he was much younger, the ones of her round with his pups, of her standing in the Sept with his cloak around her shoulders, of them standing on the ramparts and watching the colors over the Sunset Sea. He'd told her of the night in White Harbor when he'd dreamt that he'd taken her hand in his, of wandering through meadows with bonnie, robust children toddling in their wake. He'd always kept those dreams to himself, locked them away for his own use, and he'd felt utterly flayed in sharing them with her.

And he'd felt like he was tempting the gods, or fate, or whatever other unjust force it was that was propelling them away from each other.

She hadn't laughed at him as he had feared, she hadn't done anything but spin them herself, talking of what she would name those bairns when they came: Adalyn, Wyllis, Myrcella. He had chuckled that the little princess' name made her list, but he rather liked the thought, too. She'd dropped his name in there and he had grunted, but the thought of a son named after him made him puff up a little, even if it wasn't how things were done. He preferred something completely different, to give the boy a fighting chance of being free of him, he just didn't know what.

He'd left her that morning, her own trunks packed for her departure later in the day, and he'd kissed her with the same perfunctory force that he had before the Blackwater, though he had let his hands bury themselves in her hair, his nose full of the sweetness of whatever it was she washed it was. If he did something as soppy as smell his fingers, he knew they'd still smell like that. As did the curl that was tucked against his breast, so palpable to him it was almost heated. Such a kiss and such a token were promises for more to come.

Later.

Much later.

It already felt like forever.

He'd bidden her not to come to the yard, and she had agreed. It would have raised eyebrows among his men if she had been there. He sighed, and knew it was for the best that she stay in her rooms, but now he could feel her eyes upon his back and it took every ounce of his strength, great as it was, not to turn and get one last glimpse of her.

 _Last_ , he thought determinedly, _it will not be the last._

And he could believe that as long as he kept his eyes forward, Stranger's head pointed away from her.

He felt the Hound creeping back into his blood the morning that he left Riverrun. The beast had been confined for quite a while, and he'd started to push against the bars of his kennel before Sandor was even dressed, getting stronger as the day wore on. Perhaps it was the helm, the plate, but he knew it was his distance from her. Every step away from her felt like a stretching, a tightening, and the Hound was slipping further and further off his leash as the days plodded on. When a full week had passed, Sandor felt almost as he had before she'd ever come to King's Landing, full of bile and rage, and only the strange, nauseating ache in his belly reminded him of his better nature.

That, and the damned dreams.

Sandor pushed the remembrance of those dreams away from him with frenzy. It did him no good to think of her sighs and parted lips, her warmth and soft voice. The softness that overtook him when he had flashes of those dreams did him no good out here in the wood, hunting for his brother. Though he might have been someone else when he was asleep, when he was wakeful, he returned to being every inch the Hound. It was good. He tried to hold himself in check with his men, but to his perverse satisfaction they seemed to like it when he snarled at them. It wasn't a hard thing for him to do. He wanted to snarl and bark and shout. Anything to distract him from the excruciating tightness in his chest, even if just for a moment.

His party spent days, weeks, combing through the forests around Harrenhal, interrogating the smallfolk they encountered. He recognized the fear in their faces when they looked at him, knew that word would spread quickly that he was abroad in the territory. He didn't know if it was a good thing or a bad thing, but it was definitely something.

The people did know who he was talking about when he asked about the Brotherhood, many of them had encountered the men themselves, but they gave him the strangest report. He expected to hear them talk of Thoros of Myr- the cunt wore a topknot that could be identified by an imbecile- but it wasn't Thoros they described as the leader of the band. The captain of this group was spoken of as tall, with red-gold hair and a sober face. Sandor found it strange that Beric Dondarrion should still be making appearances in the countryside. After all, he was supposed to be dead.

He was chasing down the stories at the same time that he was sending scouts out into the woods around Harrenhal, the men returning to him each day with reports of his brother's forces. The daily messages that he sent back to Riverrun had astonishingly little content, but somehow the consistency made Sandor wary. Five thousand men camped at the fortress, no significant forces within a few days ride. It seemed too easy.

He was sitting by the fire when one of his most trusted scouts returned for the night. The young man had a stealthy way about him, and Sandor appreciated his plainspeaking ways. The lad didn't hesitate when he drew into the fire's light.

"He's gone," the scout said simply. He had a sharp young face, and Sandor saw his eye twitch when he spoke, a sure sign that the soldier was disturbed by the news he bore.

"What do you mean?" Sandor ground out, looking up at the boy over the chicken leg in his hand.

"The Mountain. He's not there anymore."

Sandor stood slowly, wiping the grease from hands on his thighs before fisting them at his sides.

"Where did he go?"

"Not north," the lad continued, drawing back a bit in hesitation. "And not west, neither. Must have been south, perhaps east."

"Back to Tywin," he replied. "But why?"

He was more or less asking himself, but the lad looked back at him with a look that plainly said he didn't have a fucking clue. Sandor swiped his hand over his face, rubbing his eyes as a headache started behind his forehead.

"I need to send a raven," he said darkly, striding away from the fire and into his tent, the scout on his heels.

"Forgive me, but isn't this good news?" the lad asked hopefully. "We can take Harrenhal-"

"There's no such thing as good news," he replied, dashing off a message to the King. "And we won't be taking Harrenhal. He's still out there," he jabbed the quill in the general direction of the southern wild. "And not far off. He has five thousand, we have fifty. There's no way we could meet them all, and the King is nearly a week's ride away."

The lad fell silent, and Sandor took a breath to avoid cursing the greenness of such young soldiers. _Take Harrenhal with fifty men,_ he scoffed. _What a fucking notion_. A sourness had coated his tongue, and his only consolation was the knowledge that Lenna must be almost to the Twins, if not already past, three weeks into her journey with her brother and far away.

The bird flew swift, returning the next afternoon. Sandor had kept them in camp, sending out only a handful of scouts to keep an eye on Harrenhal itself. The king bid them hold their camp until they could figure out where the Mountain and his men had gone. Scouts were to be sent out not only from Sandor's men, but from Roose Bolton's army, currently thirty miles to the north.

For once, Sandor thought that Robb Stark was acting with prudence. He'd half expected the boy to tell him to take possession of the fortress, and he was relieved when he didn't. He tasked his scouts with moving south whilst he continued his own hunt for the Brotherhood.

He was beginning to feel that the whole mission had been ludicrous, as slap-dash and likely to fail as Lenna's original idea of luring the Lannisters out. This Brotherhood was proving hard to find, even if every smallfolk they talked with seemed to have seen or heard of them. There had been a farmer that claimed to have encountered them the week before a few miles away. Once the scouts were dispatched to chase his brother, Sandor roused his men early, leaving a contingent of men to wait on the scouts while he and the others headed in the direction the old man had pointed them in.

It was a fine day, and he didn't hate to be out riding. They were on a side road, in the wood about ten miles distant from Harrenhal. He couldn't help but think Lenna would like such a place, the sun slanting through the leaves, lighting them all shades of green, light falling thickly like honey. She always pointed out such little beauties to him, and he had finally started to see them for himself. She would have liked these woods, she liked the quiet.

That thought made him halt in his tracks. The birds had stopped singing.

"Out for a little exercise, Hound?"

A figure stepped into the middle of his path, flanked on either side by archers. Sandor suspected there were more in the trees, gritting his teeth against his own blindness. He should have noticed. But, along with the lance of apprehension that cut through him, he also felt a thread of pleasure. He'd recognize the rangy man looking evenly back at him anywhere. He'd been bested by the man's damn flaming sword three times in his life, and he reined a mouthy Stranger back into check as he stared him down.

"Thoros of Myr," he said quietly, repressing the urge to grin. "I've been looking for you."

"You have, have you?" the other man smirked. "How strange. Certainly didn't expect to see you here. Though we have heard tell that you were about for some time. Odd story, though. Come down off your horse and we'll see if what you tell us matches what we've heard."

Sandor eyed him warily and he let out a grunt. One of the archers standing behind the Red Priest shifted in his stance, steadying himself as his hand flexed on the bow's grip. His arrow was nocked, and Sandor didn't like the heated anger in his dark eyes.

"Tell your men to stand down," he barked.

"Why would I do that?" Thoros asked, his blackened teeth winking. Sandor didn't reply, chewing his tongue. He made a gesture to his own men not to move, their hands relaxing on their pommels. "Take him, lads."

Against his wishes, Sandor raised his hands in surrender and dropped to the ground as the band of marauders stepped into the road. He let out a sigh like a gale. He counted at least a dozen in addition to the three in the road.

 _Fuck._

"Your men can go," Thoros said, leaning on the hilt of his sword as if it was a mere walking stick. "How did you come by a Stark guard, I wonder? We've no quarrel with them. Would rather not feed them, anyways." He dismissed them with a wave of his hand. They looked to Sandor. He kept his mouth shut, but he nodded, watching them go. Thoros cocked a rangy brow at him. "Now, our business is with you, Hound."

Sandor put up no resistance as they bound his hands and threw a sack over his head. He knew his men would stay close by, at the very least they'd ride back to camp and bring back reinforcements as soon as may be. He hoped none of them would try to play the hero and follow him. He didn't think Thoros of Myr would take kindly to that kind of valor.

Two of Thoros' men took him by the elbows and frogmarched him through the woods, his feet clumsy in his blindness, stumbling over rocks and roots and fallen branches. They walked him for nearly an hour before halting. Though he couldn't see, he thought they must be in some kind of clearing. He hadn't brushed against any trees in at least a dozen yards. He could hear the sound of running water from high up, falling into a pool. When his escorts finally pushed him forward again, he was only mildly startled to feel a cold rush of it as he stepped through the trickling curtain into a coolness that would have been refreshing under other circumstances.

A cave. They must have brought him to a cave.

The sack was removed from his head, but the two men still held him firmly by the arms. He could shake them off like flies, and he felt certain that they all knew that, just as they all knew that he wouldn't try.

"What is this place?" he asked, looking at Thoros with mild annoyance, trying to hide his relief. If they were already decided on killing him, he would have been dead by now.

"Somewhere neither wolves nor lions come prowling," he answered. Sandor fought the impulse to roll his eyes. The Red Priest always had a flair for the dramatic, flaming sword and all. Sandor looked around at the gathered men, their faces dancing in the shadows cast by their torches.

"You look like a bunch of swineherds." He should bite his tongue, but it was too easy to lob insults at his captors. They were a rough bunch, men of all walks, dirty and mangy and altogether shabby. There were even some boys, no more than ten or twelve, hanging back in the shadows. An older lad stepped in front of the smallest, his eyes narrow. Even from the distance Sandor could make out the color -blue- and he felt that he'd seen that boy somewhere before. The lad had powerful shoulders, the rough hands of a worker, but he couldn't place him.

"Some of us were swineherds," said the young archer from the road, drawing Sandor's attention away from the boy. "And some of us were tanners and masons. But that was before." His guards let go and left Sandor standing bound in their circle with his hands behind his back.

"You're still swineherds," he replied flatly, derisively, "and tanners, and masons. You think carrying a crooked spear makes you a soldier?" The archer looked back at him with smouldering annoyance. Sandor threw his head and shoulders back in response, looking at him from hooded eyes. Thoros of Myr was strangely quiet, and Sandor wondered that he should let a mere boy do his talking for him.

"No," replied a familiar voice, and the young archer took a step back. "Fighting in a war makes you a soldier."

Sandor turned his head slowly in the direction of the speaker, feeling a strange chill lace its way up his spine.

"Beric Dondarrion," Sandor replied, not quite believing his eyes. He had thought surely the rumors were false. He had been confirmed dead at the Mummer's Ford at his own brother's hands. In truth, the man looked only a little better than a corpse, his clothes ragged and stained, and he was wearing an eyepatch he hadn't had in his time in King's Landing. "You've seen better days."

"And I won't see them again," Dondarrion replied with what could have been a smile.

"So the rumors are true," Sandor said, looking around. "Is this all that remains of your band?"

"Yes, but we picked up some more besides," Dondarrion replied, his tone not at all what Sandor expected. There was no hostility, no threat in his voice. Just plain talk, soldier to soldier, despite Sandor's hands being bound.

"Stark deserters, Baratheon deserters," Sandor said, noting the armor some of them wore. "Are you fighting in a war, or running from it?"

Dondarrion smirked at the barb rather than being stung by it. "Last time I heard you were King Joffrey's guard dog, but here you are a thousand miles from home. Which of us is running?"

"Not running from anything, Dondarrion," he replied, leveling his gaze at the knight. "Sent hunting. For you."

"What a good dog," Beric said scoffingly, "but whatever for?" Amusement was written in his square face, the remaining eye glinting with odd good humor. "To finish the job your brother started?"

Sandor winced, grunting and flaring his nostrils to avoid spitting out his bitterness. He'd have time for that later, and it would do him no good to do it now.

"Robb Stark sent me," Sandor replied when he had mastered himself. "Work for him now."

"You betrayed your King-" Dondarrion had cocked an eyebrow up at him mockingly, almost like it was a good joke. Sandor's temper flared.

"Why does everyone seem to think I should have stayed with that little cunt?" Sandor demanded, spit flying. "Would you have stayed? Would you have died for the likes of him?" There was silence. He turned and looked at the men assembled around him, all looking at him like some entertainment, a trapped bear that they were wary might break his chain. "Who among you didn't turn your back on something. If you hadn't you would be here, you'd be in your proper armies, your fields or your tanneries." He was breathing hard, agitation and anger threatening to turn him feral. He took a deep breath, feeling his ribs expand against his hauberk, the little parcel pressing against his breast and reminding him to check his temper. "But that's not why I came, though if you don't believe me, there's a scroll from King Robb in the pouch beneath my breastplate."

Thoros stepped forward and rooted around until he found it, withdrawing it and pulling on the string. Sandor was thankful his hand had found the cloth tucked against his chest. He didn't feel like explaining that to the cunt. Thoros pulled out the scroll with its direwolf seal and flicked his eyebrow upward at his leader in what Sandor took to be surprise at his honesty.

"Robb Stark's seal. He's not lying," the priest said, extending the parchment.

"Let me read it," Beric said holding out his hand. He broke the seal and his eyes scanned the contents. He gave it back to Thoros with a gesture of impatience. "So he did send you. To talk of your brother."

"Aye. To gain your help," Sandor replied, fumbling on the last word. He was a terrible diplomat. "What exactly are you doing, leading a mob of peasants?"

"Ned Stark ordered me to execute your brother in King Robert's name."

"Ned Stark is dead," Sandor said flatly. "King Robert is dead. My brother is alive." _And you haven't killed him yet._ "You're fighting for ghosts. Robb Stark is Lord Eddard's heir, fight for someone still living."

"But we are ghosts, waiting for you in the dark. You can't see us, but we see you. I've been watching you in these woods for some time, Hound. Only before you were not alone."

"My men have been in these woods for weeks," he replied quickly, cold trepidation welling in his gut.

"That's not what I mean. I mean before, just after the Blackwater." _Fucking hells_. "You had a woman with you. Where is she now?"

Beric Dondarrion had pinned him with his lone eye, like some old god of war or wisdom. Sandor read anger in that gaze, but also patience.

"Safe," he replied stiffly. "Where she belongs."

"So you did ransom her?" Dondarrion asked, cocking his head, but his face was like carved stone.

"She is where she belongs," Sandor replied in no more than a whisper, unwilling to tell him much more. From the strange understanding in Dondarrion's eye, he didn't have to.

"She will never be safe while your brother lives," Beric said quietly. "He's been looking for her. Knows she was with you."

"And she isn't anymore," he ground out through gritted teeth.

"If you prey on the weak the Brotherhood Without Banners will hunt you down."

 _Horseshit_ , he thought meanly. Beric Dondarrion was looking at him with that kind of conviction only fools and martyrs have, all blazing eyes and set jaw. Sandor didn't know if his words were a warning or some sort of fucking vow.

"You found god, is that it?" Sandor asked derisively.

"Aye," Beric said with a smile. "I've been reborn in the light of the one true good, as have we all, as would any man who had seen what we have seen."

Even though the words sounded ridiculous, Sandor couldn't detect a hint of irony in them. Sandor's patience was running thin, and he was tired of dancing around his purpose for being there. Dondarrion, on the other hand, seemed in no rush to get to the point.

"If you mean to murder me, bloody well get on with it," Sandor said, with more courage than he felt. He didn't want to die today. All this talk of Lenna reminded him of just how much he didn't want to die today.

"You'll die soon enough, dog," Thoros retorted. "But it won't be murder. Only justice."

"The kind of fate that you deserve." It was the cunt archer again. Sandor rolled his eyes. "Lions, as you call yourselves, at the Mummer's Ford. Girls as young as seven years were raped, and babes still on the breast were cut in two while their mothers watched." His voice was shaking, with sorrow or rage, Sandor couldn't tell.

"I wasn't at the Mummer's Ford," Sandor replied tersely. "Cast your dead children at some other door."

"House Clegane was built upon dead children," Thoros said, his tone vicious. "I saw them lay Prince Aegon and Princess Rhaenys before the Iron Throne."

"Do you take me for my brother?" Sandor asked bitterly, leaning as close as he could and baring his teeth. "Is being born Clegane a crime? Gods know I wish I hadn't been, but here I am."

"Murder is a crime," the angry young man said.

"I never touched the Targaryen babes," he protested, real offense flashing in his blood. He had done many things, but he had had no connection to those horrors in King's Landing. "I never saw them. Never smelled them, never heard them bawling," he insisted. "I was in service, aye, but in the Westerlands, far from my brother." _Running,_ he thought, _I was already running. No more._ "You want to cut my throat, get on with it."

He'd had no illusions that getting them to listen to him was going to be easy. He had even come to terms with the possibility that this very scenario was going to unfold, that they'd kill him without even hearing him out, but he'd walked into that den with a singular thought in mind: Lenna. He'd do this if he wanted to go back to her. She thought Beric Dondarrion was a model of knighthood, and if that was true, he would at least listen before he killed him. If he listened, if he was as good as she believed him to be, then he would be swayed.

"But don't call me murderer and pretend that you're not," he said, looking straight at Thoros. "You've done your share." Thoros looked back at him dispassionately, but there was a strange, quick jumping in his jaw.

"You murdered Mycah." A strong little voice broke the tense stand-off. "The butcher's boy. My friend. He was twelve years old. He was unarmed and you rode him down. You slung him over your horse like he was some deer."

A moment of recognition almost made him stumble. When he turned to face the child, for he was sure it was a child, he was almost glad. It was the boy he'd spotted in the shadows, no more than ten, only it wasn't a boy. Looking back at him through a curtain of stringy dark hair were the hard grey eyes of Arya Stark. The girl was filthy, dirt streaking her face, caked across the knuckles that gleamed white as she clenched her hands. He was sure her nails would be black with grime, too, and he noted that she didn't shirk from meeting his eye.

 _Scrappy_ , he thought absently.

"Aye," Sandor replied, addressing her like she was their equal. He'd not shield her. "He was a bleeder. My saddle stank for weeks."

"You don't deny killing this boy?" Dondarrion demanded, anger in his voice for the first time.

"I was under orders," he replied straightforwardly. "The prince alleged that the boy had attacked him. The queen bid me bring him back. Dead or alive."

"And you chose dead!" Arya shouted, her shrill voice bouncing off the stone walls, her shoulders hunched as she lurched a step forward in her grief.

"Aye," he replied, turning to her slowly, not letting her look away from him. "I chose dead, Arya Stark, because if I hadn't he'd have been tortured and maimed in the Black Cells. Doesn't matter that he didn't do it, he was going to die for it either way. Did you want him to suffer? Did you want him to be kept at the edge of death while Joffrey played with him, hm?"

"He didn't do anything," she protested hotly. "I hit Joffrey. Mycah ran away."

"Then I should have killed you," Sandor said, taking a step forward. He was gratified when the girl took a step back. _Still a child_ , he thought as she looked at the ground. "Wasn't my place to question the queen."

Dondarrion looked between them for a long moment. "You stand accused of murder," he said, voice ringing through the cavern. "But no one here knows the truth of the charge. So it is not for us to judge you. Only the Lord of Light may do that now. I sentence you to trial by combat."

Sandor forced himself not to laugh. "If I win, will you help me? Hm?" Dondarrion didn't agree, but he didn't refuse either. Sandor sighed. "Who will it be. Going to find out if your fire god really loves you, priest?" he said to Thoros of Myr. "Or you, archer," he turned on the young man who had frogmarched him in. "What are you worth with a sword in your hand?" Then he faced Arya Stark. "Or is the little girl the bravest one here?

"Aye," Beric said. "She might be. But it's me you'll fight."

 _Shit_.

It gave him a moment's pause. On the lists of skilled fighters in the Seven Kingdoms, Beric Dondarrion was near the top, same as he was. The other man was smaller, would be quicker, and Sandor really didn't want to kill him. For Lenna's sake.

He looked around, getting his bearings. The cavern was dark, the light of the torches barely making a dent in the darkness. The shadows undulated gently, and he tried to make out the rocky outgrowths from the floor, but he couldn't get a good look in the dim light. He heard the trickle of water, and assumed the floor itself would be slick in places, but he could not see well enough to identify them. He groaned.

"Lord," Thoros of Myr said, his voice low and solemn. Sandor huffed at the theatrics. "Cast your light upon us."

A chorus of response went up around him though he didn't quite make out the words, and despite his scoffing the hairs on the backs of his arms, his neck, stood on end.

"Show us the truth," Thoros continued. "Strike this man down if he is guilty, and give strength to his sword if he is true." Someone cut his bonds and Sandor shook them off, hand immediately going to grip his sword as it was handed back to him. He nearly sighed with relief. "Lord, give us wisdom, for the night is dark and full of terrors."

He was warming his arm when he heard it, a rush like wind. When he looked to Dondarrion, he took a step back in simple fear. The damned knight's sword was aflame. Only, it wasn't like Thoros of Myr's flaming sword, green with wildfire, this one had lit itself, the flames crimson and gold. He had no idea how such a thing could be.

He didn't have time to quail, though, and someone shoved a buckler into his grasp. Dondarrion made the first thrust, Sandor blocking it before making his first advance. He let the battle rage take over, his vision going white, shrinking down to only Dondarrion and his fucking flaming sword. He parried, thrust, and blocked, the two of them making a wide circuit about the cavern. He was only vaguely aware of stumbling through a cooking fire, the heat momentarily scorching his leg through his greaves. He was quickly driving Dondarrion back, gaining the upper hand, when it happened.

One of Beric's blows landed on his buckler, making contact long enough to set the damn thing alight. His heart began to bleat like a goat, rapid and irregular as he tried to focus on fighting and not the fear bubbling in his brain. Sandor bit down and fought on, the fucking thing lodged on his arm. He could not shake it off, but he had no choice but to try and ignore it. The heat was becoming too much to bear, sweat rolling off of him as his arm began to burn. Pain and the shadow of pain made him frenzied, and it sent him into a flurry of clumsy hacking. It caught Dondarrion off-guard, forcing him to his knees. When the knight raised his sword to block one of Sandor's wild thrusts, his blade was cleaved in two and Sandor found his own sword lodged deep into Beric's torso.

Sandor let go, not at all able to savor the dull thump of his opponents body as it hit the ground, too busy ripping the damn buckler off his arm, at last succeeding as the damn thing splintered and fell apart. He had fallen to his knees clutching his burning arm, rolling on it to stifle the flames. He was only vaguely aware of what was happening, overwhelmed by the panic and fear in his blood, the pain from the burn. It made him sweat and shudder and want to curl up in a ball on the floor.

Thoros of Myr was bent over the body of his fallen leader, and for a wild moment Sandor pitied him. A wound like he'd inflicted was already fatal. Sandor wouldn't have been surprised if he'd sliced through his heart.

A flurry of anger threw itself at him, Arya Stark rushing at him with a little sword and a nameless shriek. He briefly thought that it would be a shit way to die, at the end of a child's blade, but someone caught her around the waist, dragging her away.

"Burn in hell," she shrieked. Sandor huffed, the pain in his arm a torment.

"He will." The familiar voice surprised him for the second time, and Sandor slowly turned his head to see Beric Dondarrion looking back at him. "But not today."

He blinked. Hard. He didn't know what he was seeing, couldn't trust his eyes. Dead men weren't supposed to talk, and there was no way that he wasn't dead.

"What-" he muttered.

"He's a murderer," Arya shrieked again.

"Not in the eyes of the lord," Dondarrion replied, very much alive and impatient with the girl's shouting. "Sit, Clegane. We'll speak of why you came here, then."

Sandor was still shaking, clutching his arm where it had burned, the pain washing over him in unbearable waves of hot and cold, making him shiver.

"About fucking time," he muttered, heavily taking a seat on a boulder and willing his heart to stop thundering in his chest, his brain still reeling and railing against the idea that he was listening to the dead speak.

A/N: I've had some extra time. I could not let go of this plotline no matter how much I tried to convince myself to do it. Sandor isn't Sandor without Arya, and vice versa. Even if I went completely rogue, nothing would work without them finding each other.

Hope everyone is doing well! Thanks for sticking with it, and hope you're down for the rest of the ride. Never saw it going this far, but here we are. I think this is the longest chapter to date... I'm interested to see where it goes, and hope you are, too!

Drop a line or two in the comments! Please?


	50. Chapter 50

Sandor L

"I don't know what the fuck just happened, Dondarrion, but if you're alive you're going to fucking hear me out," he barked, wincing and growling at the pain in his arm. The Lightning Lord wasn't paying him any mind, his one eye focused solely on the Stark girl. Sandor continued anyway, reaching out and grabbing the other man's shoulder. _The shoulder you just cleaved in half_ , he thought darkly. "I came on Robb Stark's orders, you saw what he wrote."

"This child," Dondarrion said flatly, at last turning his face back to Sandor as he pointed to the little Stark. "She's the one that's missing. Ned Stark's daughter."

"Aye," Sandor replied, ramming his frustration down into his gut. "Disappeared from the Tower of the Hand. When Lord Stark was captured."

"You were there," the child howled, again lunging at him from her place in the shadows, grey eyes luminous and feral, tears streaming down her face. "You took him. You took him and I never saw him again." Her voice broke, going squeaky as a mouse, and she hastily wiped a dirty sleeve across her nose, snot streaming from it.

"I was there," Sandor acknowledged, not bothering to lie. The child did not look away from him even though she continued to snivel. He liked her bravery. "Under orders, little wolf."

"And you stood by and watched as Joffrey had him killed," she wailed. He looked at her hard, wondering how she knew. Surely she wasn't there that day, she'd been missing for at least a week when Ned Stark was paraded out and killed. "You didn't even move. My sister, she was screaming, and you just stood there."

"What would you have had me do?" he asked. He'd asked himself the same question a hundred times. He had yet to come up with an alternative. Darkness seemed to have taken up residence in his lungs at the thought that this little high-born girl had seen such a thing, that she'd undoubtedly had to pick herself up afterwards on her own. He wasn't a kind man, but he wasn't entirely heartless, especially when he remembered the effect it had had on her elder sister, on Lenna herself, who was so strong.

"Why didn't you stop it," she wailed. "Stop him?"

"I couldn't, little wolf," he replied, and not without regret, taken back to that bright day as he stood helpless as Ilyn Payne did his duty. "None of us could."

"Sansa tried-" she spluttered, her voice cracking painfully.

"And she failed," he said stonily. _We all did_ , he thought, _and none could tell we'd come to this._

"Robb wouldn't trust you, he wouldn't," she growled, retreating from him until her back was flush against the cave wall, like he might strike out and harm her.

"He does, little wolf," Sandor replied, throwing her an annoyed glance. "He has to."

"Why?" Dondarrion asked, looking for all the world like he'd not just been cut nearly in half. He was sipping from a wine-skin almost distractedly. Sandor wondered what he was thinking.

"Forces and support are breaking," Sandor said. "Robb Stark broke his marriage contract with the Freys. It has been renegotiated, but now they demand Harrenhal in addition to an alliance. Up until the last few days, it was swarming with Lannister men, my brother's men. Now, the castle is suddenly vacant, which seems to me to be too convenient. Something isn't right. I was sent to scout it, and also to find you. Both have been difficult."

"For what purpose?" Dondarrion scoffed. "I'm not fighting for the Starks. I'm not fighting for the Lannisters."

"You can't stay fucking neutral," Sandor retorted, not at all trying to disguise his rancor.

"The way I see it-"

"The way I see it, Dondarrion, is you're either trying to stop this thing or prolong it. Are you raiders? Are you in it for profit?"

The knight leaned in offense, his fair face contorting in disgust.

"We help these people-" he started, getting to his feet, the wineskin gripped tightly in his fist.

"You help yourselves," Sandor bellowed. "Hiding in the woods, raiding when it pleases you. That's not why you're here. You were sent to kill my brother, so why is he not dead?"

Dondarrion paused for a long moment and looked at Sandor. He shifted under the other man's scrutiny, but he did not look away.

"Is that what this is about?" he asked quietly. "Revenge?"

"They aren't safe while he's alive," Sandor ground out.

"Who isn't?"

"Any of them. None of them are safe, can be safe, while he is raiding through this territory. He could be anywhere from Maidenpool to the Vale to the capital by now, and we don't know where he's gone. And Harrenhal sits empty there. Undoubtedly a trap."

"Aye," Dondarrion wagered. "I'd wager that's true. A trap of some ilk, but I don't understand it."

"Neither do I," Sandor replied, biting the inside of his cheek to gentle himself. "I don't understand it, and I don't like it."

"What would you ask of me, then, Hound?"

"Help me," he ground out, hating to sound like he was begging. "Help me find my brother and end his raiding here in the Riverlands. Help me kill him and send a message to the Lannisters."

"There's a price on your head, Clegane," Dondarrion said. "You'd do better to go back to Robb Stark, avoid these lands."

"I am under orders," he replied flatly.

"And you follow the orders that suit you." There was no derision in Dondarrion's tone, but Sandor grunted in reply anyway. "I can't say I'm not surprised to see you here. Why would the Hound turn on his masters, I wonder?"

Sandor rolled his eyes and bit back the retort that wanted to spill from his tongue. "Will you help or not? You said you were ordered by Ned Stark to execute him, that you stand up for the defenseless-" He said this with mocking he could not subdue, his anger and frustration bubbling over.

"Tell me where she is, and I might help you," Dondarrion said evenly, his one eye glinting in the dim light. Arya Stark looked at him sharply.

"Where who is?" Sandor asked, his throat dry. He didn't want to talk about her, not here.

"Helenna Manderly," Beric said quietly. The little Stark's head whipped around and her eyes narrowed at him. "News travels fast, even in these woods. The smallfolk are singing tragic ballads about the lady. You took her from King's Landing during the Blackwater, and we saw you here in these woods. Together. But now she's not with you. What did you do with her, Hound?"

"I told you. She's safe. Took her to Riverrun," he ground out, hands curling into fists. "To her brother."

"Is she there now?" Dondarrion replied with surprise.

"No," he replied woodenly, his chest cracking as the little thread stretched taut again, thinking of her trunks packed and loaded in the courtyard even as he rode away. "On her way north to her father in White Harbor. Should be past the Twins by now."

"I suppose you were paid handsomely," Beric said, his gaze flashing and his jaw set.

"Didn't ransom her," Sandor barked, looking at his hands. "Just took her back to her people."

"Why?" Dondarrion tilted his head like he was prompting a child.

"Fuck off, Dondarrion," Sandor growled, his fists clenching. "Are you going to help us or not?"

Beric backed away a step. "I don't do anything for free anymore. But there is something you can do for me, and I'll think on it. You want your brother dead, and so do I. But this piece of baggage must be taken care of first."

"What's that?" Sandor demanded, all to aware that he was no in a position to negotiate.

"Take this one back to her brother," Dondarrion said, grasping the little wolf by the shoulder. "If she's Arya Stark, she needs to go home to her family. Are you Arya Stark, child?"

The girl nodded glumly.

"He'll pay," Sandor ground out. "I can offer you coin, says so in the letter."

"And I'll take it," Dondarrion said, looking down at the child. He took a good look at Arya Stark. She was dressed in boy's clothes, a rough tunic and trousers, her hair cut short about her face. When she glanced at him, he felt like Ned Stark was looking back at him, the grey eyes, the dark hair the same. He was mildly surprised at the flash of guilt that flared in him at the memory of the girl's father, of his dignity as he knelt and faced his death. Sandor angrily wondered for the thousandth damn time why he hadn't fought back.

"I won't go," Arya cried, struggling against Dondarrion's grip, her voice shrill against the cavern walls. "Not with him."

"Yes, you will," Beric said. "Bound or unbound, it is your choice. You belong with your family, and they are nearby."

"But he killed Mycah," she said stubbornly. "He'll hurt me."

"I'll not hurt you, little wolf," Sandor said, knowing better than to try and make himself seem friendly. He settled for neutral. It usually worked. "I'll take you to your brother. Your mother is with him."

"How can you trust him?" the child demanded.

"The Lord of Light has plans for him yet," Dondarrion replied cryptically, but his eyes were on Sandor's. "Carry her home," Dondarrion said, "bring back the coin. Then we'll talk about your brother."

He looked at the darkening sky. He was half a day's ride from camp. "Aye," he replied, "but we'll have to stay here tonight. Too late to travel."

Beric nodded gravely. "Sit and eat, then."

Sandor lowered himself down warily on a boulder. The little Stark was shooting him deadly looks. Part of him wanted to apologize to her, just say that he was sorry. Not that there was much he could have done. The boy had been done for as soon as Joffrey set his sights on him, but he doubted this little wolf would understand.

"I'll take her with me tomorrow. Her brother will have already left for the Twins. I'll send her there with some of my guards, or Bolton's. If he's arrived. He's supposed to send a group of men."

"Bolton's?" the girl asked, the previous rancor in her voice replaced with surprise, then fear. She looked frantically at Dondarrion, leaping to her feet, nimble as a cat and just as prickly. "I told you he couldn't be trusted. I won't go with him."

She backed away from him with quick steps, her eyes flickering between him and Dondarrion, all while looking for a way out. The knight stood slowly, hand extended as if to gentle her. His eye was narrowed in confusion, and Sandor felt his own hackles rise, getting to his own feet as the girl looked around herself frantically, a caged animal desperate for escape.

"Roose Bolton is your brother's bannerman," Beric said lowly, pitching his voice in the same way Sandor did when he was trying to calm Stranger. "Why-"

"His army is encamped just thirty miles north," Sandor offered, not trying to match Dondarrion's tone.

"Of course he is," she ground out acidly, her little face pinched, her teeth bared in a snarl. "He's one of them."

"What do you 'mean one of them'?" Beric asked, shooting a look at Sandor that told him to shut the fuck up. Sandor took a step back and suppressed a grunt. The girl set her jaw and looked away. "What do you mean, child?"

She looked at him with an expression of startling precociousness. Sandor remembered her as a snot-nosed little tomboy, running around her father's Keep in a stolen helmet, sulking as the boys trained in the yard. This was not the same child, this urchin with the dogged look in her eyes. _Gods,_ he thought bitterly, _she looks like I did at that age._ "Roose Bolton sent ravens to Tywin Lannister at Harrenhal. He came, once or twice."

Whatever pity had erupted in him fizzled as he took in what she'd just said.

"How would you know that?" he asked lowly, his voice barely more than a whisper. He took a step forward, and the girl took two back.

"I was Lord Tywin's cupbearer," she spat out. "He knew I was a girl, but he didn't know who I was."

"You were at Harrenhal," he said without expression. She nodded, eyes shifting. Still looking for an escape route. He forced himself to take half a step away from her, hands in loose fists by his sides as he tilted his head forward to look her in the face. The child looked up into his face with suspicion, but not with fear.

 _Good_.

"What did these ravens say, what did _he_ say?" Sandor asked quietly. Dondarrion walked toward him, but he waved the knight away with an impatient gesture.

"I don't know," she replied tersely, but she wasn't barking anymore. "He didn't read them to me."

Sandor pinched the bridge of his nose, wincing against the pain in his arm. He took a deep breath. Snarling at the girl would do them no good, even if all he wanted to do was curse. He knew something wasn't right, but this incomplete story did him no good.

"If you remember-" he began, trying to gentle his tone. His mind was whirling, but nothing was making sense.

"Numbers. He always talked about numbers," she whispered, breaking the uneasy silence that had fallen. She was looking at him with huge eyes, grey as her father's. Grey as his own.

"Big or small?" he grunted

"Thousands."

"Fuck." The curse felt good when it burst from his mouth, fricative and brittle as it rang through the cave. The girl did not flinch.

"And a wedding," she replied. "They kept talking about a wedding."

"Who is they?"

"Tywin. Your brother. Lord Roose."

"Whose wedding?" he demanded, taking a step forward. He could only think of one.

"I don't know," she replied testily, whatever tolerance she had for her interrogation dissolving, like a cat who strikes at the hand stroking its belly. "Leave me alone."

"Was it the king's or the other?" he bit out.

"Not Joffrey's," she whispered, her lips barely moving. "They talked about his, too, but this one was somewhere else. Someone else."

"And you heard no names?" he asked. "I don't know that I believe that."

"I didn't hear any names," she snarled, her voice bouncing off the walls like stones.

Sandor looked at Thoros of Myr and Beric Dondarrion. They each wore an expression that mirrored his own, one of agitation and confusion.

The girl looked between them, and as if it was being pulled from her with iron pincers, she finally opened her mouth.

"I heard no names, but Lord Bolton said he would go. Make sure that it was done."

"That what was done?" Dondarrion demanded. "Child, what are they planning to do?"

"I don't know," she cried. "They were careful what they said in front of the others, and I...I didn't hear anything else."

"If it isn't Joffrey, there's another wedding planned," Sandor said quietly. "The deal with the Freys, to give them Harrenhal, it was to be accomplished before Edmure Tully wed one of Walder Frey's daughters. Roose Bolton is expected to be in attendance. All of Robb Stark's bannermen are expected to be in attendance."

"When?" Dondarrion asked.

"A month, give or take. I've lost track of time," Sandor replied, raking a hand through his hair, covering the scar. He felt tired, his eyes dry and his throat thick. Agitation rolled in his belly like snakes, a rat-king of turmoil. "Wendel Manderly was sent to take Lady Helenna back to White Harbor, then he was to turn around and come back to the Twins, to try and make it in time for the wedding."

"Awful convenient timing," Thoros said darkly, speaking what was in Sandor's own mind. "Harrenhal is a hard castle to take, probably why the Freys asked for it. Almost sounds like they didn't want the marriage to take place. Strange that it should crop up empty so close to when it needs to be delivered after so much difficulty. And now, Roose Bolton is going between the two? That bodes ill."

"Open the castle up, go ahead with the marriage- and Roose Bolton's slimy hide slithering between Tywin and the Freys. I don't know what is going on-"

"I expect we'll find out soon enough," Sandor replied, cold agitation and trepidation in his gut. He thought of the encounter with Bolton forces in the wood, how it had felt wrong. The presence of the Kingslayer, of the Tarth woman. How they hadn't killed him. How Grag Locke had recognized Lenna after ten years apart. "Smells of Lannisters to me."

 _He'd been looking for her_ , he realized suddenly. _Not for the Starks. For_ _them_ _._

"There's a bounty on my head," Sandor said, looking at Dondarrion. "The Lannisters have been looking for me. What of the Starks?"

Thoros of Myr cocked his head. "Why would the Starks have been looking for you? Ran off from your post, but there was no price on your head from them. Not that we know of."

Breath rushed out of his lungs.

 _Stupid_ _cunt, should have seen it before._

"Clegane?"

He clenched his jaw shut. "Ran into Grag Locke," he said quietly. "On the road."

Dondarrion licked his lips and then spat on the ground. "Shifty man, that one."

"He lied." Sandor felt it roll of his tongue like a hammer strike.

"Always did," Thoros said. "Not a good sort."

"No," Sandor replied, a deranged pleasure in his chest, spreading like blood in water. "But he'll not trouble us any more." Dondarrion looked at him sharply, then nodded. "He was riding under Bolton's banners. Said he was looking for us, that there was a bounty on my head. He was right, it just wasn't in Riverrun. He tried to take Lady Helenna."

"Back to them," Beric said lowly, his expression grim. "He was going to take her back to Harrenhal."

He nodded, pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes. "Said to Riverrun, and we were heading that direction, but fuck, I should have known. At the very least he was going to report back to them."

"Roose Bolton is Robb Stark's bannerman. Of course you would take him at his word," Thoros said quietly.

"He made a mistake," Sandor said. "I should have realized when he made the fucking mistake."

"Which was?"

"He told Lenna that both her brothers were at Riverrun. Wendel was. Wylis is still their captive. He made out that they were looking for her."

Beric snorted. "I believe they had other matters to attend than a stolen maiden," he said drily. "Even if she's apparently the most sought after woman in the Seven Kingdoms."

"I see that now," Sandor replied, wiping his hand over his face, quelling the anger at Dondarrion's flippancy. He felt a fool, believing that her people had been looking for her. They hadn't. The Starks hadn't raised a finger to try and find her, though he was sure that they knew she was gone. Of course they knew she was gone. It made him angry to think he'd believed it, that she'd believed it. _Of course they didn't look for her_ , he thought, thinking about the vague suspicion that had greeted her when they arrived at Riverrun. The questioning by the young king about her loyalties. It made his chest clench to think she'd been so forgotten by her own people while the Lannisters sent his bloody brother after her, looking to snare her back.

"Why does Tywin want her back so badly?" Dondarrion asked. "Lady Helenna, to my recollection, was a quiet girl. Pretty, intelligent, but never seemed to be that invested in court."

"Cersei kept her close," Sandor muttered. "Tywin thinks she's useful." He hesitated, weighing how much to tell the knight. "The Starks and her, they tried to ransom her back to Tywin, at least propose such, to draw him out. To draw out my brother."

"And?"

"He didn't take the bait," Sandor said. Now it perplexed him. "Bid her return to White Harbor and wait for further instructions."

"From Tywin? Does he really think she has that much sway over her father, that she'll be allowed to ferry information to him?"

Sandor bit down on his tongue. _Of course he bloody doesn't._

"Lady Helenna believes that Tywin is waiting to use her as a proxy, if and when her brothers-" his breath went cold in his lungs. "Fucking hells."

"She was to be delivered ahead of this wedding," Dondarrion said. "Safe to White Harbor. And her brother was the travel back. One brother in the Twins, one in captivity, and the lady waiting in the North."

"Fuck it all," Sandor said. "One brother at the Twins with the Boltons and Freys, they other in their custody. If he wants to use her as a proxy, what's to stop him from getting them out of the way?"

"If the child is right, Clegane," Dondarrion said quietly, "and the Lannisters are pulling these strings, the Boltons and the Freys involved, something is going to happen at that wedding, and it isn't going to be good for any of us."

Sandor couldn't bring himself to talk any more. He ate what he was offered, a bowl of brown and a piece of rough bread, finished the wine he was given and bedded down on the hard cavern floor. Sandor spent an uncomfortable night staring into the darkness of the cave, his mind in a quagmire, not at all bothered by the cold or damp, or the snivelling of the child in the darkness.

The next morning, Thoros of Myr helped him load a sleepy and recalcitrant Arya Stark onto his saddle. As he went to swing up behind the child, Beric Dondarrion approached him.

"I'd send a man with you," he said, gesturing behind him. The archer from the road stood behind him looking sullen. The lad looked at him with flat, dark eyes.

"We'll be faster alone," Sandor said. "I'll double back to my camp and see if I can send word ahead, then run to the Twins directly. They'll have already left Riverrun. It's at least two weeks of hard riding, especially with this one here with me."

The archer looked visibly relieved, though no less poisonous. Beric nodded, biting down on his tongue as he thought.

"Take her anyway. And send me word," he said, "of whatever you find. You'll be able to reach me through the innkeeper at the Inn at the Crossroads. Direct it to Anguy," he said, jabbing a thumb at the young man behind him. "It will come to me."

"I will," Sandor ground out, "as soon as may be."

Beric looked up at the girl where she sat on Sandor's saddle.

"He'll not harm you, girl," he said, peering up into her odd little face.

"How do you know?" she asked in a harsh whisper.

"He was judged rightly," he answered. "No harm will come to you while you're with him. Don't do anything foolish- your brother's life might depend on it. Many lives might depend on it."

The child didn't respond, two deep notches between her eyes as she scowled, but neither did she struggle.

Sandor let out a breath that could have been relief, and nodded sharply to Dondarrion. The knight held his gaze with fire in his eyes, and Sandor felt strangely affected by it, just as he had the night before when he'd heard the rush of wind and realized it was flame. He couldn't quite decide what he thought of it. It didn't really matter. Not right now.

He didn't look back as he turned Stranger in the direction of his camp, riding hard as the child clung to his pommel. She didn't speak, a little shadow, and Sandor didn't mind. He didn't know the first thing to say to the child.

Half an hour later, he found the body of his scout in the road. The boy had been run through from sternum to groin, his eyes staring lifelessly at the sky. Sandor did not react to the boy in order not to frighten the child, though seeing him dead made his blood turn to lead. In favor of keeping the girl calm, he kept going, stepping Stranger around the lad's body as he carefully made his way down the road. After discovering two more of his men, similarly mutilated and left in the roadway, he'd had enough.

His brother was ranging, and he was nearby.

"Hold tight, little wolf," he muttered, turning Stranger's nose away from the road and barrelling into the wood in the rough direction of the Twins.

Lenna L

It took them three weeks to reach the Twins, the weather having gone from fair to stormy in the few days leading up to their arrival. Lenna refused to ride in the small wheelhouse that Wendel had insisted upon bringing, despite her brother's protestations. It carried nothing but their trunks. The weather was turning, summer to autumn, and as they went North the wind became more and more bitter. She relished the feel of it blowing in her face, ruffling the hair that fell below her chin. The cold gave her something to hold on to.

She had taken to wearing her boots again. She'd hidden them in her room at Riverrun with the dagger still in place. She didn't know why, but she felt safer knowing it was there against her ankle, a little reminder of him. She was fairly sure that she wouldn't have to use it, would have no cause to pull it out. They were travelling through friendly territory now, on the main road, stopping at inns where they could and camping beside the road when they couldn't.

The first time they had made camp, Lenna automatically went to build the fire, much to her brother's bewildered amusement. He had said nothing until she went to retrieve the fire-flint, only to realize that she didn't have one. Her palfrey had no saddlebags, and it took her an awkwardly long moment to realize that she hadn't forgotten them, and that this wasn't Stranger.

"One day I should dearly love to hear about your time on the road," Wendel said, taking the fire-flint from on of their guards and offering it to her. "I would love to know how my prim little sister learned to build a fire."

 _And gut a rabbit,_ she thought, _and kill a man_.

She smiled wanly and settled down beside him, spitting an apple to roast over the fire as she had done with Sandor. It brought her little comfort, just dredged up her memories like kelp on an anchor, ripped from the deep place she'd stored them and stinging at his absence.

Without thinking, she whipped out the little knife to cut the apple in half, proffering the other piece to her brother. The teasing had gone out of his face.

"Where did you get that?" he asked. She looked back at him blankly. "Do you know how to use it?"

She nodded, and then the words started to flow out of her. She told him everything, his face crumpling up to hear her talk about running from Maidenpool, about their capture. She didn't tell him about Jaime Lannister or Brienne Tarth, she didn't tell him whose men it was that captured them, but she told him enough that he saw and understood her distress, and he drew her into his arms and she rested against him as she had as a little girl, her big brother keeping the bad thoughts away.

"I did not want to leave him," she whispered raggedly, the last dregs of her strength failing. "I wish there had been some other way."

"I know," he replied. "And I am glad you told me all of this, so I can understand him more fully. So I can understand you. You have changed, Lenna. You are not the woman who left us years ago."

She shook her head and brought his hands to her lips. "I wouldn't go back, even if I could," she choked.

"Of course you wouldn't," he replied, kissing her on the forehead as if she was a child.

The journey was exhausting even if it was smooth. She lost her appetite quickly, her stomach roiling from waking to sleeping, sometimes barely able to choke down her bread. The cheese was repugnant to her, and Wendel looked at her strangely when she refused it.

"It must have molded," she said, offering her portion to him. He ate it, but when he chewed it was with great deliberation.

The appearance of the Great House did little to alleviate her somber mood. Wendel exclaimed when they rode within sight of it, standing astride the Greek Fork as it did. Lenna had pulled even with him, gazing at it with cold appraisal, her cloak drawn up about her face as a cold rain dripped upon them.

Through the mists, she could plainly make out the two unlovely halves of Walder Frey's seat, rising up like stout sentries from their positions on opposite banks of the river. She was reminded of a story she had read Joffrey when he was a child, about two giants who faced off with one another across the Narrow Sea, each refusing to let the other out of their sight until they both starved to death. The moral of that story had been about the folly of holding grudges, and Lenna smiled wryly to think that Joffrey had obviously not learned his lesson very well.

A long bridge ran between the two Keeps, gray and dull in the faint afternoon light. They were significantly farther north than they had been at Riverrun, and here at the cusp of the North, the chill of autumn was definitely in the air. It seemed to Lenna that the place was entirely devoid of color, the only tints being shades of grey that made her feel cold, inside and out. She shivered, her fingers trembling as they held her reins, and she didn't feel as if she'd ever be truly warm again.

They arrived in the southern Keep at nightfall. Torches were lit, casting ruddy light over the ashen walls, and a small group came out to meet them. Lenna recognized one of the Frey knights that she had danced with at Joffrey's tourney years before. Perwyn, she believed, a man about her age, perhaps a year or two older, with a long face and grim demeanor, much like his father. He was tall, though not so tall as Sandor, with lank black hair that brushed his shoulders. His eyes were hooded, dark like his hair, but they were not unkind. She knew as soon as his gaze met hers that he recognized her, in fact, she was fairly certain that she detected a glimmer of pleasure in seeing her. It perplexed her, but she wasn't unhappy at the prospect of having a friend in this place.

Walder Frey she recognized, of course. The Lord of the Crossing was standing beside his son when they rode into the small courtyard, his hands behind his back and his eyes avid on Lenna as Perwyn came to help her dismount. She accepted the knight's help, feeling almost faint as she dropped to the ground, grateful for a strong arm about her waist. Though he was wiry, Perwyn Frey was powerful, his grip on her steely as he kept her upright. Her legs failed her briefly, and she stumbled into the Frey knight.

"My apologies," she said, trying to smile up at him, and his eyes flashed intently back at her. "It has been a rather long ride."

Perwyn Frey looked at her solemnly, but she noticed him swallow and avert his eye as he released her, his arm springing away from her as if she had been hot to the touch.

"My lady," he said quietly, not looking at her again as he left her standing beside her brother. Lenna managed to right herself, following Wendel to greet Walder and the young woman who stood beside him. She managed a curtsey to the old lord, his eyes on her feeling rather like an eel had slithered along her arm, his voice raspy as he welcomed her, his tongue dropping consonants until the words were nearly indistinguishable.

"A welcome to the Twins, my lady," he said. "You have met my boy, I believe. Perwyn. At that tourney some years ago."

"Aye, my lord," she answered feebly, the faintness and dizziness not abating. She clasped her hands before her stomach tightly, clinging to the sensation of her bones pressing together. "I had the honor of dancing with him at the feast, I believe."

She hazarded a glance at Perwyn and found that he was looking back at her openly, a bit of warmth in his dark eyes. She tried to return it, stunned when a splash of color lit his sallow cheek.

"And this is my daughter," Walder said, cold eyes watching his son's reaction as he gestured to the girl beside him. "Roslin."

"The one to be married to Lord Edmure?" Wendel asked, looking at the girl. She blushed delicately, her eyes cast down. She was a pretty thing, petite with long nut-brown hair, long eyelashes, and roses in her cheeks.

"The very same," Walder said. "Pity you should miss the celebrations, my lady. You'd be an ornament to such a gathering. Your father should attend to your own marriage."

Lenna flushed, opening her mouth but finding she had nothing to say.

"Let us go inside, my lord," Perwyn said quickly, looking at Lenna. She was quite sure she was pale and drawn. She felt nearly transparent. "I'm sure your guests are tired and wanting their supper and their beds."

"Right, right," Walder said. "Come on, then."

Lenna watched as Wendel offered his arm to the young Frey girl, and Roslin smiled hesitantly up at him through lowered lashes. Not a coquette, Lenna thought, but merely shy. Frey's daughters were not renowned for their charms, not any more than their lord father was for his affability, but this girl seemed sweet, innocent even. Lenna felt a bit of relief for Lord Edmure, and perhaps a bit of consternation. Robb Stark should not have been displeased with such a wife.

She chastised herself for even thinking such a thing, startled out of her thoughts by Perwyn Frey appearing again at her side. His cheek hollowed as he flexed his jaw, his eyes sliding to hers askance. He extended an elbow, and Lenna was thankful to slide her hand into its crook, leaning on him rather heavily.

"It has been nearly three years since that tourney," Perwyn said quietly, breaking the silence in which they party walked. His tone was rather intimate, like he didn't want to be overheard. "I'm surprised that you remember, my lady."

"Of course I do," she answered honestly, louder than he. She had no reason to hide her response. "I never had many chances for dancing. I believe I danced with your brother as well."

"Yes," he replied. "Danwell. He was married last year."

"Congratulations to him, then," she said as they walked into the hall. It was a dark room with rudimentary benches set up beneath a crude dais. It was not a lovely place, rather bleak and dreary if she was being honest. Perwyn looked ready to speak again, but he clamped his mouth closed again like a perch. She dropped her hand from Perwyn's arm and took her place beside her brother at the high table. She was still feeling a little queasy and befuddled, no doubt as a result of the constant motion of the horse.

A dinner was put in front of them, but Lenna had little appetite for the gray boiled mutton and oily potatoes. She did her best, knowing she needed to put something in her stomach, but she picked at it more than anything, only managing to finish the coarse bread that had been brought to accompany the meat.

"Not to your liking, my lady?" Lord Walder asked, raising a horn cup to his lips and watching her from over the rim. Northerners took their laws of hospitality seriously, and the last thing she wanted was to cause offense.

"Excuse me, my lord," she said, feeling her cheeks heat. "My stomach has been poorly. Being on the road for so long has made me peckish, I'm afraid."

"And you'll be on the road a while longer, I'd expect," he said. "A long way to White Harbor."

"Aye, my lord," she responded. "Another two or three weeks at least."

"A pity you can't stay for my girl's wedding," he said again. "You'd enjoy it, I do believe. We have a special entertainment planned. Unlike anything in Seven Kingdoms, I would imagine."

He drank deeply from his cup, and Lenna found herself staring openly at him. The old lord looked back at her and the glint in his eye was conspiratorial. She didn't know what to make of that look, but it felt significant. There was something about the wild delight in his face that she did not like, not any more than she liked the sensation of him trying to draw her in.

"Lenna will be loathe to miss it, I'm sure," Wendel said, looking to Roslin Frey. The girl had eaten even less than Lenna had. "You'll make a lovely bride."

"Thank you," the girl muttered, her fingers twisting the napkin in her lap. Lenna looked at her strangely, then back at Lord Walder.

"You must be relieved to be back amongst your own people," the old lord said. "You've been gone so long."

"Yes," she replied carefully. _No lies._ "And no. I did not wish to leave King's Landing."

"Even with your father and brothers fighting here in the north?" He wasn't blinking as he regarded her, chewing noisily. He reminded her, despite his crudeness, of Tywin and his reptilian gaze.

"Lenna-" Wendel bit out, but she looked at him askance with a look that told him to be quiet.

"I am not fond of warfare, my lord," she said. "I do not see a reason for it. I'd have us make peace."

Perwyn's gaze slid to hers, dark eyes brooding and mouth slightly parted, as if he was trying to think of something to interject. He looked at her brother and pursed his lips, thinking the better of it.

"But surely you see the necessity, my dear," Walder said, throwing his head back and squinting at her down the length of his beaky nose. Some might think him hawkish, but he resembled nothing to her so much as a vulture, all sagging, sallow skin and hooked nose.

"I don't see anything necessary in killing," she replied quietly, pretending to cut at her meat.

"There was nothing necessary in Ned Stark's death," Walder said shortly.

"No, my lord," she replied evenly, bracing her wrists on the table, her cutlery clenched in her hands. "You are quite right. I was there, you see. I saw what happened, how it went from a pardon to an execution. And I agree with you wholeheartedly." Walder stared at her hard and Lenna fought the desire to look away. Finally, she settled for a smile and a flutter of lashes, a return to the food she had no intention of eating. "But I'm just a lady. What do I know of such things."

This seemed to appease Walder Frey for the time being, the old lord slumping back into his chair, hiding his face in his cup.

"You have been through much, my lady," Perwyn said from his father's side. He did not look at her, but seemed rather intent on murdering the mutton on his plate, his brow contracted and cheek hollow.

Lenna hesitated to respond. "I have seen my share," she said at last, settling as best she could on the sentiment.

"You would not want to be in the middle of such again, I think," he said, still not looking at her. "A quiet living would be more to your taste."

Lenna smiled, thinking of Sandor's Keep in the Westerlands. He always derided it as a pile of rocks with barely enough income to make a living. To her, it had sounded like the seven heavens. She wished for nothing more than to simply be away from these people and their malevolent games.

"Aye, ser," she replied. "I have no desire for excitement. And I am suspicious of those who do."

She was thinking, of course, of Sandor, and his reticence in setting off against his brother, in search of the Brotherhood. It caused her pain to think of him, to wonder where he was, to hope he was well. To hope he was alive.

When she looked up, her lips twisted up at the thought of him, she was met with Perwyn Frey's gaze, and for a moment he looked back at her frozen, a softness about his eyes. Lenna didn't know why the expression on his face should make her recoil, but it did. He looked away quickly, again turning his attention to the quick dispatch of his potatoes.

Very little was said during the course of the rest of the dinner, Lenna rising and retiring early, before she was given leave.

"You'll have to excuse me, my lord," she said, looking at Walder with her best courtier's smile and a quickly bobbed curtsey. "I am overtired from the journey. I would beg your leave."

"Aye," the old man said. "Perwyn will see you to your chambers. Your brother is not yet ready."

Lenna cut her eyes at her brother and Wendel nodded briefly. She rose to her feet, a little unsteady, and Perwyn caught her elbow. When she had gained her balance, he let his hand fall too slowly, and Lenna felt something cold settle in the pit of her stomach.

She followed him through the halls of the Keep, taking care to observe him as they went. Something was not right in the Twins, and she despaired of figuring out what exactly it was that was transpiring. There was nothing about his tall form that gave anything away. Perwyn Frey was perhaps half a foot shorter than Sandor, two or three inches taller than herself, but he was not nearly as powerfully built as Sandor. _Who was?_ she thought wildly. Perwyn was lanky, almost wiry, through there was strength in the broad shoulders, grace in his arms. He had been a fair fighter, though Lenna could not remember who it was that had unseated him. A hedge-knight of some ilk, she thought. But it was his eyes that gave everything away.

Perwyn Frey was troubled that night, whatever his worry was creeping into his dark gaze. His eyes weren't black, but they might as well have been, hooded and long-lashed. Not without their beauty, she thought absently, and when they settled on her, she did not like their expression.

His gaze was tender and altogether too intimate for someone she had danced with once and shared a single meal with. When he looked at her, Lenna felt quite off-balance, and quite sorry for him. Whatever was the source of that regard, it could not and would not be returned.

"You have been through much, my lady," he said, parroting his earlier words when he stopped awkwardly before a heavy wooden door. She wanted very much for him to step aside and let her go in.

"I am on my way home," she replied simply, not bothering to elaborate on it. He'd decided what he wanted to hear, of that she was sure.

"Whatever happened," he said, his eyes on the floor, "whatever transpired on the road, after the battle, you need not be ashamed."

Lenna colored deeply at the insinuation, indignation making her heart thud.

"Ser-"

"No," he said simply, laying his hand on her arm. She looked at the long, knobby fingers and short nails dumbly. "I mean no offense. Or pain. Only that my...admiration is not dimmed by it." He paused for a long moment and Lenna was too angry to respond, her breath rising hot and harsh and high in her chest. "I wish you were going to be here for my sister's wedding. I'd like to dance with you again."

Lenna clenched her fists, her nails biting into her palms as she slammed her courtesy back in place like a portcullis against an invading army. _Anger is not your instrument_ , she reminded herself swiftly, finding her courtier's voice again.

"You were a fair dancer, as I recall," she responded, thankful he was looking at the ground and not at her. He smirked and let out what could have been a laugh, still not looking at her.

"You were, most certainly," he replied. "Queen of Love and Beauty." He still stood between her and the door. Lenna did not push past him even though she wanted to. "You were beautiful. You are beautiful."

Lenna swallowed hard and fought against the tremors in her gut. She would not look at him, hoping he would take her lowered gaze as maidenly modesty, and not what it was. Rage.

"Thank you," she replied, managing to glance up at him, her cheeks scarlet.

He looked at her then, and he smiled. It was lopsided and didn't reach his eyes, but not for lack of sincerity. Something was troubling Perwyn Frey, and Lenna wanted to know what it was almost as much as she wanted to escape his clumsy and uncomfortable flattery, his liberty.

"Good night, my lady," he said, little more than a breath as he stepped aside and pushed the door open. Lenna murmured a goodnight to him as she stepped past him, quickly shutting the door and barring it.

She climbed into the bed, a four-poster so dusty that a cloud rose from it when she sat on the edge to kick off her slippers. She didn't even bother to undress, folding herself under the coverlet that was more a wall-hanging than a blanket, and stared at the canopy until she finally drifted off.

Her dreams were troubled, but indistinct. When she woke in the morning, a maid had already been in and stirred the fire in the grate, and a tray of breakfast was sitting on the little table with a pot of tea. She rose and went to the table, but the smell of the sausages on the plate caused an overwhelming wave of nausea to overcome her, and Lenna staggered to the chamber pot, releasing the meager contents of her stomach. It was mostly yellow bile, and she coughed and spluttered, wiping her hand across her mouth.

She cringed to smell the sausage again, but did manage to pour a cup of tea and grab the scone that was on the tray, moving back to her bed to eat it. She barely choked down a mouthful before she was retching again, and afterward, she kept herself only to the tea.

A maid arrived and helped her dress and change. The girl told her she was wanted downstairs, and Lenna followed her in confusion, wondering why she might be called when she and Wendel were to be off as soon as may be.

When she entered the hall, she was surprised to find it empty save for Walder Frey. He was sitting at the high table, alone, a plate before him and a tankard of beer by his plate.

"The lady is not a late sleeper," he said quietly, taking a drink. It sloshed down his chin and he wiped it away with the back of his hand absently.

"We are to leave early, my lord," she replied. "It would not do to delay."

"Indeed," he replied, stabbing a potato and eating it noisily. "You do not wish to stay."

"I'm supposed to be home as soon as may be," she replied. "My father ordered it."

Walder Frey resembled nothing if not an eel, his narrow face and lantern-jaw giving him the sinister appearance of a bottom-dweller. Lenna did not like having his yellowed eyes on her, but he looked her up and down.

"My boy would have you," he barked without preamble. "Likes you. Has since that tourney. Then you were too fine for the like of him, whatever son of mine he is. But now-"

"My lord," Lenna protested, her cheeks flushing.

"Too good for him, still?" Frey barked.

"That's not what I said," Lenna replied. "Only that I am just lately returned to my own people. I have not even been home yet. To entertain such-"

"Too delicate you are," Walder said. "You were coddled and cosseted by Wyman. By your mother. Fine lady Adalyn Locke was, but her refined southern ways-"

Lenna was sure that she shook her head.

"My mother was a Northerner."

"Born there, yes," Frey said waspishly, waving his hand in the air to dismiss the idea. "But not bred. Her mother was a Redwyne. She was herself a lady-in-waiting to a Targaryen queen. You don't belong here, do you girl? Your years in King's Landing have quite spoiled you. You're one of them now."

Lenna bit back a retort, unsure what exactly Frey was trying to say, but she was sure he was trying to tell her something.

"I intend to write your father," he said, wiping his face. "After this business with Roslin is done. A wedding that isn't the be missed, I assure you. But you'll be glad, girl, to be far away from it."

Lenna was gaping at him like a fish. "As it please, my lord," she said at last, unable to think of anything else to say.

"' _As it please, my lord,'"_ he parotted back at her. "Sound like Cersei."

She bobbed a curtsey to the old lord. "If you'll excuse me, my lord," she muttered, barely moving her lips.

"You'll go with or without my leave," he said with a smirk. "I'll have to instruct Perwyn on what to do with spirit." She set her jaw and lifted her chin at those words. "Of course, there is the complication of your previous betrothal, but I believe that can be overcome."

"I am in the North," she replied. "That betrothal will not stand."

"Will it not?" he said, cocking his brow, his voice snakelike and sibilant. "Who will break it, I wonder? Not you."

She hesitated. "It was made under duress. It will not stand."

"No," he replied lowly, his voice too gravelly to be silky, but it was like the rasp of a cat's tongue. "It will not if I have any say in it."

Lenna looked at him hard. "My lord-"

"Starting to figure it out, my lady?" he replied. "Good. Said you were intelligent. That you'd be useful." He rose and shuffled towards her. "My son, Perwyn. He's a good boy. He'll be a good lord, too."

"He's a lesser son," she repeated.

"Not when you come into White Harbor," he replied. "Then he'll be one step shy of a Lord Paramount, and you the Lady of White Harbor."

"I am not the heir," she said lowly. "My brothers, my nieces-"

"Yet," he said, with a curl of his lip that made her stomach lurch and threaten to make her spill her tea on the floor. "You are not the heir yet."

A/N: Taking advantage of the opportunity to write while I have it! I'll be on a tighter schedule in another week or so. Hoping to have the next installment up around Wednesday of next week.

Thank you, as always, for your kind words. Shout out to guest Mandy J- thank you for your reviews! I try to PM people personally, but since you're a guest, you get a note here instead. Reviews help me persist in this- it has become an interesting animal, and I am but the wrangler. As to "skipping" parts of the plot to move forward- not going to happen. All things have a purpose, even if it's interwoven bits of canon. I've said my piece.

Review, please!


	51. Chapter 51

Lenna LI

Her father had an ancient strongbox that he kept in his library, perhaps dating back to the Manderlys and their flight north from the Reach. It was a heavy, dark old thing, taking up nearly half of a wall. She'd be fascinated with it as a child, spending hours studying and tracing the intricate interlacings of the locking mechanism beneath its lid. She had always felt that she would never be able to make such a thing, so complicated and labyrinthine that once locked it was impenetrable. But the key, once twisted, would set the various levers and rods into motion and the mechanism would release, the lid opening easily. She loved turning the key, watching the incomprehensible and impossible rendered effortless and ordered.

 _You are not the heir to White Harbor yet._

"Only time will tell, my lord," she said, her hands hidden in her skirts to hide her trembling, sure that she had just been handed some sort of key. Terrified of what she might find if she used it.

Without another word, Lenna dropped a curtsey to Walder Frey and turned her back on him, hoping that she had said enough, hoping she hadn't said too much. She wanted to curse him, to rage at him, _to kill him._ The dagger was there in her boot, and he was an old man, but she schooled herself into that silence, that grey middling that had kept her safe thus far.

She stumbled down the passageway fully convinced she'd be sick with every footfall. So engrossed with her thoughts, she almost ran into her brother. He caught her by the shoulders and she was surprised she didn't faint, barely able to lift her chin to meet his eye.

"Where have you been?" Wendel asked, a bead of sweat rolling down his face. He was puffing down the passageway in her direction, his cheeks glowing like cherries. "I've been looking for you."

"I was summoned," she replied lowly. "Lord Walder-"

"Not here," he hissed, eyes casting around for eavesdroppers. "Get your things in order. The wheelhouse is ready, and I want to be gone from here as soon as may be."

She nodded weakly, passing by him into her rooms. It was not a difficult task, and she went about her business without thinking, her mind far too engaged in picking apart the last hour. All that had been brought in for her the night before was a valise, which some maid or other had packed already. She hailed a girl in the hall while she threw a cloak around her shoulders. It was the same gray-blue as her old one, though it had been made up new for her in Riverrun. Sandor's black and yellow was buried at the bottom of her trunks stored on the cart.

"We are leaving now," she said coolly. "Could you bring that, then inform Lord Walder?"

The girl took the satchel from her with a bob, then spirited herself off down the hallway without so much as a glance over her shoulder.

Lenna stood for a moment, trying to remember her way out of the bloody Keep, interrupted from her increasingly frantic thoughts by a calm voice.

"So you are going then."

Perwyn Frey had come up behind her on soft-soled boots. He was standing with his hands behind his back, looking at her from down the long length of his nose. The expression in his eyes was doleful, regretful, and Lenna almost felt sorry for him. At least, she might have if she'd had the time.

"My brother says we are to leave immediately," she managed, straightening her cloak around her shoulders and adjusting the hood.

"I had rather hoped you'd stay," he said with a stiff smile. "But I know that it is not to be."

"Unfortunately," she replied, all of her effort focused on dissembling and seeming regretful even as she desperately wanted to be away from him. "My father wants me home as soon as may be."

"Yes," he said heavily. "Your father. Of course."

She looked at him square in the face. "We both know it is not only my father who wishes me to hasten to White Harbor."

It was a gamble, and she knew it to be one. Perwyn was not foolhardy enough to speak, but he did incline his head and rock forward on his toes in acknowledgement. Her suspicions confirmed, Lenna felt a cold, slithery rope of dread around her neck, but she found it in herself to smile. Perwyn Frey did not know her well enough to doubt her, or to think she was insincere, and she had spent too many years with Cersei Lannister to fail in fooling a Frey.

"I did want to dance with you again," he said, that same stunned looked in his face as before. "But it isn't to be."

"Not this time," she replied, and he smiled again.

"Perhaps the next-" he started, but then he shut his mouth and turned his head. "Please. Allow me to see you out. Your brother will be waiting." She nodded, making herself take his arm when it was offered. She almost shuddered at the thought of standing beside him like this all the rest of her life. "He was huffing and puffing down the hall just a few moments ago."

She smiled, making a mad decision. "Yes, always in a rush, is Wendel."

"You are fond of him." There was surprise in his voice that took her rather aback. Instead of mimicking that confusion, she instead decided to play the doting sister. It was easy enough, and perhaps, just maybe, it would help Wendel in the future if this man and his ilk meant him harm.

"Very fond," she replied. "He was always kind to me, even though we are so far apart in age." She was beginning to prattle, but when she glanced up at the Frey, he was looking at her in avid attention, like a dog in a trash heap. "He's very funny, my brother, witty, and so good natured. A little absent minded. He's always in such a hurry."

"He has a good reputation on the battlefield," Perwyn said by way of protest.

"Aye," she replied. "I didn't say he wasn't a good fighter, only that he can be forgetful, a bit bird-brained. No, I have always heard tell he is a very good fighter."

"But you condemn fighting," he said flatly. "Bloodshed."

"Of course." She made herself laugh airily. "Who wants fighting for the sake of fighting? A tourney is one thing, but real war? I believe so many conflicts could be solved if people would just sit down and speak civilly with each other."

"This conflict?" he prompted.

"Even this one," she said, and it was the truth. "If only people had talked instead of beginning to send armies this way and that, perhaps we could have been spared a lot of pain."

"You'd still be in King's Landing," he said bleakly. "Far away from home."

"King's Landing was my home," she replied. "In so much as it is where I lived and was useful. People I loved were there."

"The princess."

"And the queen. And Lady Sansa."

"Sansa Stark?" Consternation was written on his face in the lines between his brows, thin but deep, like the two halves of his father's Keep.

"Indeed," she said, turning to look at him in the face. "I tutored her and Princess Myrcella together. She was just as bright and pretty as a copper star. I looked after both of them."

"And she was punished," he said. "Most cruelly, for a child."

"Aye," Lenna said, not narrowing her eyes though she wished to. "As was I. And I was not a child."

His adam's apple bobbed in his thin neck and he nodded, his face again dark with some unspoken trouble.

"My apologies," he said quietly, laying a hand over hers where it lay in his elbow. "I did not mean-"

"Think nothing of it," she replied brightly, drawing her hand away. They had reached the courtyard and Wendel was there, holding the reins of her palfrey. Walder Frey stood in much the same posture as he had the night before, hands clasped behind his back. He was looking at her and Perwyn with unconcealed pleasure.

"I hope to see you again soon, my lady," Perwyn said.

Lenna faced him, smiling by halves. "Yes," was all she managed to stay in return. He did wish to see her again, there was no point in denying him, and no disservice to herself in agreeing with his statement. He would hear in it what he wished to.

 _They all do_.

She approached Lord Walder and made a low curtsey despite standing in a puddle on his cobblestones.

"Safe travels and all that," Walder said, his thin lips twisting up in a smirk, taking her hand when she forced herself to offer it. His old hands were cold, the thin skin not unlike that of a lamprey, clammy and strangely delicate.

She nodded to him. "Thank you for hospitality, my lord. And our best wishes to your daughter. She will make a fine bride."

"She'll need your good wishes." His eyes gleamed as he looked back at her, dipping his shoulders and head sharply in a decrepit bow. "Mind the rains, my lady."

Her entrails fizzled at the phrasing, but she allowed a groom to help her into her saddle though she did not need it, and she was grateful when she was able to rein her horse around and set her back to the Freys and their Keep.

It took the better part of half an hour to cross over the bridge and make their way back on to the road again. When they could no longer see the wretched place, she pulled her horse even with Wendel's so close that they were nuzzling each other, their noses brushing in the cool air.

"Wendel, what did you talk about last night?" she asked, turning her face so that she could hear despite the folds of the cloak, but keeping her eyes on her horse's ears.

"You," he said flatly. "All he wanted to discuss was you. He asked all manner of questions."

"What kinds of questions?" she demanded. "Wendel, please tell me you-"

"I did the best I could," he replied hotly. "I know better than to tell him that you're on our side, because I have the strangest feeling that he is _not_."

Lenna took in a shuddering breath. "I fear you are right."

"He wanted to know about your time in King's Landing, how you were brought to Riverrun. By whom."

"Did you tell him?"

"That it was the Hound? Of course," he replied. "He'd have known it for a falsehood if I did not."

She furrowed her brow, her mouth turned down. "And what else?"

"He is going to bid for your hand. For that son of his."

Lenna nodded. "He told me as much this morning."

"Father will never consent," he said brusquely. "The idea itself is ludicrous even if it was possible."

"I don't think he gives a fig if father consents or not," she replied blandly. "I don't think he sees father as an obstacle, not in the long run."

"What do you mean?"

"What was the last thing he said to us just now, Wendel?"

"What, the remark about the weather? 'Mind the rains' wasn't it?"

She turned her eyes to her brother then, and saw the look of growing realization as it broke across his swarthy face.

"Fucking hells," he said quietly. "What is going on?"

"I think, brother, that you will need to be late to that wedding. And we need to reach father as soon as may be. Walder Frey is plotting with Tywin Lannister, and I fear for the King. I fear for everyone who will be present at that celebration."

"He is supposed to be King Robb's man," Wendel said, his face that of an angry bulldog.

"He is," Lenna agreed, "but I think Walder Frey is his own man, first and foremost. He sees an opportunity, and he intends to sieze it. I think he even fancies himself a bit noble by bidding for me on Perwyn's behalf. To save me."

"From what?" Wendel scoffed.

"From Gregor Clegane," she said flatly. "And I'm half inclined to think that Tywin would humor him, if it delivers him White Harbor and the Twins."

"And the Dreadfort," Wendel said lowly.

"Bolton?" Lenna said. "Why am I not surprised."

"No more than I am," Wendel said.

"How do you know?"

"I'm no fool," Wendel spat. "Though he might think I am. There was a raven delivered to him last night. He took one look at the seal and sent me packing. I suppose he thought I didn't see it, but there's no mistaking a flayed man."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Lenna demanded. "That band of men that met us on the road-"

"What of them?"

"They were Boltons. Something seemed off, but their leader-"

"Fucking Grag Locke? You ran into Grag Locke on the road and didn't tell me?"

"I killed Grag Locke," Lenna said lowly. Wendel looked at her, openly flabbergasted. "Locke said that they were sent by you."

Wendel reined his horse up short, making the animal stop in the middle of the road.

"Lenna," he said, clenching his eyes shut. He'd gone a peculiar shade of greenish pink since she'd let slip that it was Grag Locke's throat she'd slit, and his hands were gripping his reins so tight she thought his knuckles might burst through his skin. "It was a lie. We did not send Grag Locke hunting for you. I would never consent to that man being sent after you."

"He was our kinsman," she said dully, the shame and the fear threatening to make her ill.

"Perhaps," Wendel said lowly, "but only by the barest of blood ties. He was Bolton's man through and through. Took joy in his work, if you get my meaning. I remember that Grandmother more or less had him attainted, not that there was much for her to keep from him. A schemer, a climber, and willing to do whatever he had to. I would never send the likes of him looking for you. Neither would King Robb."

"He was never looking for me on your behalf," she said plainly. "There were no search parties from Riverrun?"

Wendel shook his head. "How could there have been, sister? We got word nearly a week after the Blackwater, just a message from Cersei saying that Clegane had stolen you. She never indicated which direction he had taken you, and we wouldn't have known. I only knew that I was relieved to hear you were with him, nothing more."

Lenna took a moment to turn this over in her mind, endeavoring to push away the hurt that came from knowing that her family, her people, had made no effort to recover her, trying to hear him when he said there was no way for such a thing to have been done anyway. He spoke sense. But if he spoke sense-

"We must get a message to the King as quickly as possible, Wendel," she whispered harshly. "He cannot go to that wedding. He cannot."

Wendel nodded. "There will be an inn when we reach the Kingsroad. Three days, two if we ride hard. Do you think you are able, sister?"

She looked at him puzzled. "Why wouldn't I be."

He took a deep breath, looking away from her. "No reason. We'll take a guard or two, the wheelhouse can follow behind."

She nodded, and within fifteen minutes, they were speeding over the downs.

Sandor LI

"Kill me," he indolently, his eyes still closed, "and you kill your brother, too."

The Stark girl stood motionless above him, the rock poised in her hands. He'd heard her get up, walking lightly as a wild thing about the little clearing where he'd made camp the night before. She'd slept like the dead, and so had he, but he'd been dozing since dawn had broken, the sky lightening to a leaden gray. He wasn't quite ready to begin again, further delayed when he heard the girl stirring, suspecting that she was going to try and escape.

He'd had to make himself not grin at her when he realized she was going to try and kill him.

 _Spunk_. He couldn't help but admire it.

"I will tell Robb," she said, the rock still aloft.

"You have to find him first," he replied, shifting on the ground to look at her. He'd grown too used to featherbeds, his back and shoulders protesting the movement. "And you don't have the faintest idea how the fuck to get to the Twins. Not in time to make any difference."

She looked back at him blankly and he sighed, hoisting himself up and off the ground. He stretched and groaned, thinking he was perhaps getting too old to sleep on the ground like this all the time, thinking he'd have been more comfortable with Lenna curled up beside him.

 _Stop that_ , he warned himself, and he put the thought away.

They rode hard again, but there were times when he had to rest Stranger at a canter. He refused to stop at midday, but it did give him a chance to pull out an apple to chase off the worst of the hunger. Dondarrion had given them a day's worth of bread and cheese, but it was gone now, and without having been able to return to his own camp, his men likely slaughtered, he'd resorted to killing their suppers and foraging for whatever he could find: hard little pippin apples, handfuls of blackberries, and now that it was autumn, walnuts and hickory nuts that he cracked in his hands and offered the child who sat in front of him. She had enough sense to pick out the bitter and take only the meat, though he would have enjoyed watching her splutter. The girl didn't like taking what he offered her, but he could hear her little stomach growling like a wolf cub.

"Sulk all you want," he said when she glumly took an apple from him. She bit into it, her nose wrinkling at the almost bitter sourness of the hard flesh. "Truth is, you don't want to be alone out here, girl. Someone worse than me would find you."

"There's no one worse than you," she muttered waspishly.

He smirked at the attempt at insult. She had bite, and he liked her for it. He almost found her constant jibes enjoyable. It wasn't often he met someone as hardbitten as he was, even if she was still a cub and in need of honing her banter.

"You've never met my brother. He once killed a man for snoring," he said, not at all disappointed when the girl's scowl deepened. Her sneer was almost as permanent a feature on her pinched little face as his was. "Plenty worse than me," he continued seriously. "Men who like to beat little girls, men who like to rape them. Saved your sister from some of them."

It was not a good memory, and he regretted that it had sprung to mind, just as he regretted speaking of it. She turned and looked in his direction slowly, her eyes on his breastplate and not his face.

"You're lying." Her voice was the color of steel, dull and lusterless and hard.

"Ask her, if you ever see her again," he rasped. He honestly hoped he would never cross paths with Sansa Stark. The girl brought nothing but trouble, but he hoped for this little one's sake that they would meet again. "Ask her who came back for her when the mob had her on her back." He had the feeling he should stop, the child was too young to hear such things, but he figured she'd heard and seen worse already. "They'd have had her every which way and left her there with her throat cut open if it hadn't be for me and-" He stopped himself abruptly, his throat suddenly dry.

"And?" she said peevishly. "And who?"

"Never you mind," he replied, biting into his own apple, losing the desire to speak anymore. The month apart had felt like a decade. Every time he thought of her felt like a hook ripping into his flesh, the queer ache in his breast intensifying. So he did his best not to think of her at all. If he didn't think of her, he could almost forget about it. Almost.

He cleared his throat against the lump there. "That's the Red Fork," he said, nodding to the river ahead of them.

"Why are you taking me there?" she asked suddenly. "Why are you doing any of this?"

He took a deep breath and swallowed the apple, seeds and all. The little wolf didn't know what her questions were doing to him, and it was plain to him that he was in for a little more torment.

"I swore an oath," he replied quietly. It weighed heavily on him, almost like a physical weight, an anvil shoved against his sternum. He sometimes found it difficult to breathe, especially those times when all he wanted was to turn tail and leave this mess behind. To go to her.

"You don't take oaths," she said, voice full of snark and disbelief. "But you swore one to my brother?"

"No. Not to your brother." He wished he'd never opened his mouth. It wasn't that he was afraid of telling the girl, not really. Something else made his tongue stick to the roof of his mouth, the great yawning ache in his chest that seemed to throb every time he unwittingly thought about her, spoke about her. Something had been torn out of him when he left her in Riverrun, and he was quite sure the wound would never heal properly. If he never saw her again, he was quite sure that he would die of it, bleeding from its gaping hole inwardly and endlessly.

"Who then?" she asked, confusion in her pinched face.

"Someone better than the lot of them," he replied stonily, knowing that his tone was harsher to the child's ears than it should be. "Let's just try and make it to the Twins before your uncle's wedding, eh? I liked you better when you wouldn't talk."

He only half meant it. The child amused him. He'd not taken much notice of her in King's Landing. She avoided court functions, unlike her pretty sister, and as such, he'd seen little of her except for the incident on the Kingsroad when Lord Eddard was coming to the capital to become the Hand of the King. He'd thought she was scrappy, had felt sorry for her at Darry. She wailed against injustice, had a peculiarly keen sense of right and wrong. He knew what it felt like to carry that burden. He smelled unfairness as acutely as his namesake, though he'd long ago accepted that there was little enough he could do about it. He'd done the opposite of this little one. Instead of fighting it, he'd embraced it.

The world wasn't fair, and those who were honorable died just as ingloriously as the wicked, and, it seemed to him, twice as often. This child had seen her share of cruelty well before her time, just as he had, and she was already hardened by it. Where _she_ might bewail the little girl's lost innocence, he was ferociously glad. The little wolf would need every scrap of resilience.

 _She_ , he thought, Lenna's face swimming in his mind, smiling at him. He swallowed. He couldn't even bring himself to think her name.

They rode for nearly two weeks at a brisk pace, Stranger carrying them forty or so miles a day. The warhorse could do such when it was just Sandor, and the little slip of a Stark was barely a burden. Sandor reckoned they were still a few days ride out when they came upon a man and cart with a broken axle in the road. He reined Stranger in and leaned forward over the child's shoulder so his mouth was at her ear.

"I make the decisions," he said quietly. "I know who you are, but he might know who I am, or figure it out. You stay quiet. If he asks, I'm your father. Got it?"

She nodded, her breathing coming high and through her nose.

Sandor grunted, swinging to the ground and shoving the horse's reins into the girl's grip when she slid down his flank. He gestured for her to stay put.

It was only an old man, he saw, gray-bearded, and too aged to be accomplishing this errand alone. The cart he was driving stank of salt pork, and some had spilled into the roadway in the upset.

"Need a hand?" he asked, and the old man looked up at him. Sandor saw no recognition in his face, and for that he was glad.

"More like eight," he wheezed, sitting up in the mud. Sandor wedged his hands under the cart and lifted it, just long enough for the man to right his wheel. The rest of the repair would be straightforward. However, the man was looking at him in open amazement when he set the cart back down. _Stupid_. Any man would talk about such a thing, never mind his fucking face. The two of them together meant trouble, and Sandor had stirred it up himself. He grimaced.

"That should get you on your way," Sandor said briefly. He waited until the old man turned his back, then drew out his dagger, raising it to bring the hilt down on the back of his skull.

"Papa," the girl called, and he hesitated, turning back to the Stark child.

"What do you want?" he asked, tucking the dagger behind his back.

"We haven't had any meat for weeks," she said, gray eyes big in feigned hunger. _Horseshit_ , he thought, _you demolished an entire partridge by yourself last night_. He'd scarcely ever met someone with an appetite almost as big as his, Bronn maybe, but not some wisp of a child.

He huffed, striding back to her as he tucked the knife in his belt. "What do you think you're on about?" he asked lowly, leaning down to her.

"You want to kill him," she said lowly. "There's no reason to kill him. Let's just be on our way."

"Dead rats don't squeak, little wolf," he said gruffly.

"He's just an old man," she insisted. "Who does he have to tell? What would he even tell them?"

"That he saw me," Sandor ground out.

"So what?" Arya asked, her little face pinched. Sandor grunted, looking back at the man still fiddling with his axle. "Don't kill him. Please. Please don't."

"You're kind, little wolf," he said, refusing to look away from her glare. "Someday it will get you killed." She was defiant, little fists at her side. It was himself that she reminded him of now, it was her. He breathed out through his nose forcefully, teeth gritted together. "Fine," he replied laconically. "But you're going to eat the fucking pork." He made his way back to the old man, puttering away beneath his wagon. "My boy is hungry," he said, the words feeling strange in his mouth. "I have silver."

"I can spare a bit," the old man said, "but keep your silver. Take it in thanks for your help. Have to get this load to the Twins in time for Lord Edmure's wedding."

"When is that to be?" he asked as his ears perked up, trying to affect nonchalance as the man hacked off a portion of his cargo.

"Three days hence," he replied. "And it will take me until the very last moment to get there."

"Salt pork at a wedding feast?" Sandor asked. Even he knew better than to believe that the Starks would have such common fare at a celebration of that scale.

"Not for the highborns," the man scoffed with a smile. "For the armies."

"Armies," Sandor said flatly, ever nerve singing. "What armies?"

"King Robb's men, Lord Walder's, of course, and Lord Bolton's."

"Bolton brought his army?"

"S'what I was told," he replied. "And they'll be hungry. Soldiers will like a bit of salt pork to celebrate with their lords."

"Aye," he replied as casually as he could. "I guess they will. Are they already camped at the Twins?"

"On their way," he replied. "Ahead of me, I'll wager. Been on this road two days and haven't seen hide nor hair." He wrapped the pork in a piece of burlap and held it out to Sandor. "Thank you again. Safe travels."

"Same," Sandor managed to reply, making his way back to the child. He tossed the bundle into a saddlebag and then tossed her up into the saddle, swinging up behind her. "Keep quiet," he whispered, and the Stark girl did as she was bid.

He took Stranger off at gallop, the horse's powerful hooves throwing up clods of dirt behind them and leaving deep divots in the soil. Sandor turned the horse off the road again when he was sure they were far away enough from the man with the cart, turning westward.

"Where are we going?" the child asked, swiveling as best she could while still keeping her seat.

"The Twins," he replied, keeping his body hunched over hers.

"The road-"

"The road is dangerous," he replied. "Bolton men on the road will spell harm to us." He'd felt like his entrails had coiled up like a snake when the old man had said that the Bolton army was on the move. The army should be in Harrenhal, not marching north to the Twins. Sandor had his suspicions as to what that meant, but time was now absolutely imperative

He pushed the horse until he thought his old friend might drop from sheer exhaustion. Sweat had turned to froth on his flanks, and Sandor could feel his ribcage heaving against his legs. There was nothing for it but to stop, the horse sheltering under the trees as the two of them hunkered beneath a bush. The rain went on for hours, and with each roll of thunder, Sandor felt their time running away, just like the mud and water than coursed down the hillside and into the river.

He pulled the child up out of the muck when dawn came, both of them wet and miserable as they clambered onto Stranger's back. The child shivered against him, and he could hear the chatter of her teeth. It took them another day, their path swinging out and around the Twins before coming in from the north, away from the main road and above where he figured Bolton's army would be encamped. The last thing he wanted was for them to be spotted by a Frey or a Bolton. When they stopped, the two castles in clear view, Sandor had a good vantage point from which to observe.

Stretched below him were three armies surrounding the castle itself, just as he'd expected. The Freys were about the Keep in a protective ring, The Stark banners were to the north, and the army of Roose Bolton to the south camped around the road, the flayed man clearly seen even from the distance.

"They've fucking blocked the way out," he muttered. The child had been quiet for the last day, since they encountered the old man on the road. She hadn't sulked or lobbed insults at him, just slumped against his front silently.

"What's going to happen?" she asked quietly. For all her spunk and nerve, she was just a little girl after all.

"I don't know, little wolf," he replied. "But it's not good for us."

"What will you do?"

He took a deep breath. _Save the child_ , he decided. "I'm going to leave you here." Her little body stiffened. "I'll be back for you. But I will not risk taking you into that camp until I know what's going on."

"My mother-"

"Is in that Keep, child," he said, pointing to the castle. "And what do you see outside of it?"

"Soldiers," she replied.

"Whose soldiers are they? You know your sigils, your colors."

"Frey soldiers."

"Right," he replied. "And those?"

The child shuddered. "Roose Bolton."

"Well done," he said, and the girl pouted at him. "And where is Roose Bolton supposed to be?"

The girl's back stiffened, her fingers digging into the smooth leath of the saddle until her fingertips were white, her filthy fingernails dark crescents.

"But he's Robb's bannerman," she exclaimed, her voice going high. "He wouldn't-"

"Wouldn't he, little wolf?" Sandor kept his voice soft. "I turned my back on my liege lord. And you yourself said he was plotting with Lord Tywin. Do you not think the two are connected? He has turned, and you know it."

"But you did the right thing," she barked, and he knew it cost her. His lip turned up. "You left that awful Joffrey and came to help my brother."

"I didn't come to help your brother, girl," he replied.

"Then why-"

"No time for that now, and never you mind," he spat. "Walder Frey would take any opportunity he could to have more. He doesn't have enough land for all of those children he's sired, and he's a little man. A petty man. See that great Keep, that bridge? He controls the river, but he's subject to the Tullys. Roose Bolton is supposed to be watching Harrenhal, protecting your brother's holdings to the south. Even if he came himself, why would he need his whole army with him? Lords don't usually bring their fighting men to little events like fucking weddings."

"Hound?" she said, her voice like a rustling of dead leaves.

"Hm?" he grunted, looking down at her from his height, surprised that she would try and call him by any name.

"Are they going to die?" He was reminded suddenly of how young, how little she was. The child was precocious and full of spleen, but she was still a child.

He could not put together an answer for her, at least not one that would comfort her. If he did, it would be a lie. "You stay here, do you understand me?"

She nodded, her head tilted downward but her eyes still meeting his. She looked like pup, all scared eyes and dropping shoulders.

He nodded back to her, handing Stranger's reins over.

"He knows you well enough by now," he said gruffly. "He won't bite you. Brush him for me. He deserves a good working over." He made sure she had the right equipment, pleased to see she knew what she was doing. The girl did not protest, and that made him wary.

"Do not move," he ordered gruffly. "Do not wander. Stay with the horse. I'll be back before nightfall."

She stared up at him, her shorn hair falling about her face. She reminded him so strongly of himself that for a moment he paused.

"Please," he said quietly. "Stay here and don't do anything foolish." She didn't reply. "Say 'yes, I understand,'" he prompted harshly.

"Yes," she replied in a whisper. "I understand."

Sandor nodded and sniffed, making his way through the wood and toward the Stark banners.

He startled a sentry pissing in the woods, the boy dancing in fright to see him emerge from the trees.

"I need to see the king," he said, and the boy tucked himself away in a hurry and warily led him into the camp. Sandor noted with dismay that Robb had brought the entirety of his force with him to the Twins. He wondered who was keeping Riverrun. There weren't as many Tully fish as there were other banners, but it still stirred worry in his gut to think that their stronghold was so undefended.

The boy led him through the camp, and would have led him straight through the Frey lines if Sandor hadn't stopped him.

"No," he said quickly, clapping the lad on the shoulder. "Is King Robb not here?"

"Aye," the boy replied. "In the Keep."

Sandor took a step back. "I'll not go in there," he said quietly. "Who is your commander?"

"Lord Tully."

"The one to be married?" He had about as much use for Edmure Tully as he did the flux.

"No, ser, Lord Brynden."

"Where is he?"

"In there, ser," the boy squeaked.

"Go to him, boy," Sandor said, drawing the lad close by the collar. "You know who I am?" The boy nodded, eyes wide as moons. "Tell Lord Brynden that I am here, but no one else is to know. Understood?"

"Aye, ser?"

"And stop with the fucking sers," he growled, shoving the boy back. "Go. Speed yourself back."

The boy returned over an hour later. In that time, Sandor had found ale and meat, scarfing down nearly a loaf of bread. He'd also procured a cloak, too short for him, but enough to hide his face, which was what he was most concerned with doing.

"You're supposed to be hunting your brother."

He was sitting on a rough stool still massacring his meat and bread when the boots of the Blackfish walked into his line of sight. Brynden Tully had a hunted look about him, no doubt brought on by Sandor's sudden appearance in his camp.

"You're supposed to be defending your castle," he replied through a mouth of bread.

"From whom?"

"That's why I'm here," Sandor growled. Tully straightened up and bid him follow with a tilt of his head.

"I'm quartered in the castle, but this will do," the Blackfish said, leading Sandor into a nearby tent. It was obviously some sort of command, and those inside scattered at his appearance amongst them. "Have a seat."

Sandor did not. "I've been riding for over a month," he said. "I'll stand."

"Out with it, damnit," Brynden bellowed. "Why have you come here, Clegane? You're supposed-"

"Something's wrong," he said quietly. "I'm not sure exactly what it is, my lord, but this marriage-"

"I know something's wrong," Tully replied, his eyes flashing. "I knew it as soon as I saw the Frey and Bolton armies ringing the Keep. It isn't the way of things, to put their men between us and our King. We are supposed to be on the same side, so why put in a line of defense?"

"And Bolton is blocking your way south," Sandor said. "I had to go twenty miles out of the way to avoid them. They've hedged you in. Even if you were to leave now, there is nowhere for you to go."

"Greyjoys to the north, Freys and Boltons to the south and east. I don't think they intend to let us leave here."

"No," Sandor replied. "I don't think that they do."

"To what purpose?" Brynden asked. "These men are our banners-"

"Walder Frey and Roose Bolton," Sandor ground out, as if the names themselves were explanatory. "I know Bolton for one has been playing both sides."

"How do you know that?" the Blackfish demanded, taking a step forward.

"I have an informant," Sandor replied quietly with a quirk of his lip. "I found the Brotherhood, and they gave me more than I asked for." Tully huffed in annoyance at his riddles. Sandor unwound his tongue. "Your niece's child."

"Sansa?" he breathed.

"The little one," he replied.

"Great gods," Bryden rasped. "Her mother must know. Where is she?"

"Hidden in the wood," Sandor replied. "I would not bring her here until I knew if it was safe."

Brynden closed his eyes, passed his hand across his face. "You acted rightly. It isn't. It isn't safe." He paced the length of the tent, his face looking as if it was carved from granite, deep lines of worry etched across it. "Edmure is a fool," he said quietly. "We have all been fools."

"Aye," Sandor said quietly. "I don't disagree."

"Men used to keep their honor." Brynden Tully's neck was strained, tendons standing out behind the aged skin. He was still a powerful man, a strong man, despite the steely hair and deeply chiseled furrows of his face. "There was a time when treachery like this would have been unheard of."

"No, my lord," Sandor answered him quietly, looking at him steadily. "There was never a time when men didn't grasp for more."

Tully was still, his hands clenching into fists by his side. "We had a raven from Wendel Manderly before we left Riverrun. He and the lady quartered here overnight on their way to White Harbor."

"You heard from her?" he asked, his heart dropping sharply into his boots and his throat going dry.

"Safe, as far as we can tell," Tully replied. "Wendel sent a raven as a warning, begging Robb to stay away."

"Then why have you come?" Sandor thundered. "Why-"

"The King...my niece...they did not feel we could lose the match."

"If Walder Frey is working with the Lannisters, the fucking marriage doesn't matter. He won't keep his banners in Robb Stark's armies. There will _be_ no Stark armies. Roose Bolton-"

"I know," the Blackfish hissed. "I know all of it, Clegane. They won't listen to me."

"You are the Hand."

"And he is the King," Tully thundered back. "And just as thick-headed and obstinate as his father. As my niece."

"My lord," Sandor said, calling after the Blackfish's retreating back. "You must warn the King. Again. Tell him that I am here. Tell him I have his sister, but that he is in mortal danger."

He paused at the door to the tent. "I'll do what I can," he said over his shoulder. "I'll tell my niece that her child is here. Maybe that will make them listen."

"I'll make camp," Sandor said. "There's a clearing, quarter of a mile from here to the west."

"I'll send a runner," Brynden said. "If I do not, stay away. Keep the child safe."

Sandor made his way back to the wood, arriving at twilight with a parcel of food for the child. He dropped it in the sodden leaves to see Stranger tethered to a tree and the girl nowhere in sight. Panic seized him, and he cast about wildly in the clearing.

"Wolf girl," he shouted. "Arya Stark!"

He was nearly ready to run back to the camp when she appeared at the edge of the clearing.

"I'm here," she said, taking a step forward.

"Where the fuck were you?" he thundered, leaning over to look her in the face. "I told you to stay put."

"I did," she said, backing away from him, her cheeks going red in embarrassment. "I stayed here. I brushed Stranger, I just...I had to...to…"

He let out the breath that threatened to choke him, hands on his knees as he bent his head. He lowered himself into a crouch, running his fingers through his hair and rubbing his eyes.

"Aye, little wolf," he said at last, the child still standing straight and motionless as a blade plunged into the earth.

"Can I see my mother?" she asked. "Where is she?"

"I spoke with your uncle, Lord Brynden. He will go to your mother. We will wait here until he sends word. I brought you something to eat."

The girl was on the bag in an instant, cramming the bread and cheese into her mouth as if she had not been fed in weeks. She hadn't been, he supposed. Not properly.

He built a fire, the child huddling close to it, hugging her legs tightly. Propping himself up against the trunk of a nearby tree, Sandor dozed off as they waited.

He was awoken sometime later by the sounds of crashing through the underbrush. His blade was in his hand and he was on his feet before he was even truly awake, astonished to see men streaming through the trees as fast as they could, fully armored. It looked like a retreat from battle, though he heard none of the din.

Arya Stark was nowhere to be seen.

He seized a man as he passed close by, gripping the man by his mail bunched in his fist.

"Where the fuck do you think you're going?"

"The Hand has sent us away. We are to scatter while the nobles are at their wedding feast," the soldier said, quailing under Sandor's snarl.

"For what purpose?"

"Orders," he scoffed, spitting in the mud. "I do as I'm told."

"Where is Lord Tully?"

"At the wedding," the man said, wrenching away, fear in his face. "Let me go."

Sandor released him, pulling his hood up and mounting Stranger, pitting the horse against the tide of men. It was an eerily silent leave-taking, the soldiers slipping through the trees like ghosts, and they had, by and large, left their tents and fires blazing, no sound from them but the crunching of their boots in the leaves.

He wheeled Stranger through the crowd of men-at-arms, intent on finding Arya Stark. As he got closer to the castle, a clangor arose. It was a strange commotion, the noises of feasting mixed with the sounds of fighting, and he had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach that he knew exactly what had happened. He only hoped he could find Arya Stark before someone else did.

Then the burning started. Brynden Tully had sent his men into the woods with the clothes on their backs and what gear they could carry, and now the Freys and Bolton men were setting fire to the tents, no doubt drunk enough to think that they were in for a good fight. If they were beginning such an attack, Sandor could only guess that whatever was supposed to happen inside that Keep had already been accomplished. Walder Frey and Roose Bolton would never torch an army encampment for the sheer hell of it, not if they had been unsuccessful.

A small figure darted out from one of the tents just starting to flame, and Sandor was on her in an instant. He grabbed her by the shoulder of her tunic, wrenching her back. She flailed.

"It's too late, little wolf," he barked, and when the child continued to struggle, he walloped her soundly, knocking her unconscious and swinging them both up into his saddle. Stranger pranced, agitated by the noise and the flame. Sandor looked for an open path, dismayed at the thought that he would have to cross into the Keep.

Instead, he seized a Frey banner and spurred Stranger through the camp, at last coming to the woods again. It took little time to catch up with Robb Stark's retreating forces, scurrying like frightened rabbits through the forest. He threw down the standard and wheeled on the first group of men.

"Lord Tully," he rasped. "Is he here?"

"Aye," one of them said, pointing to the west. "Rode through a bit ago."

"Any other commanders?"

"I don't know,"

Sandor growled and Stranger reared up. He grabbed the child before she had the chance to fall, not giving the horse a moment of pause to do so again, ranging down the line in search of horsemen.

There were few, and Sandor wondered what they would do without enough horses. The men would be prey coming morning, Frey and Bolton riders easily able to rout them. It didn't take long for him to spy the lone group of mounted men, identifying Brynden Tully's silver hair even in the darkness and from a distance. Behind him was another figure, hooded and sagging against the Blackfish.

When he approached, the old lord's face was streaked with blood and grime. Sandor wasn't sure he wanted to know what had happened in that Keep. The child stirred against him, groggy.

"What the fuck happened?" Sandor demanded, Stranger dancing beneath him.

"Massacre," Tully managed. "We were right. You were right. Most of Robb's bannermen dead, his mother, his queen-" his voice trailed off, and though Sandor could not see his eyes for the dark, they would be haunted. Sandor swallowed thickly, not rueing the death of Catelyn Stark, but the murder of Talisa Stark was a tragic thing. She had been kind, and more importantly, she had been kind to Lenna, a friend. He clenched his eyes at the thought that she could have been there, that she could have been slaughtered in the Frey's hall.

 _She is safe in White Harbor_ , he assured himself, forcing his gaze back to Brynden Tully.

"And the king?" Sandor asked.

"Robb!" Arya Stark had come around fully, and he just managed to catch her. The man seated behind Brynden Tully stirred, the cloak falling back ever so slightly. Just enough for Sandor to catch the glint of moonlight on a ruddy curl.

"Arya?" he said weakly. The child slid from Sandor's saddle and he let her. Her brother was on the ground immediately, but he grunted and winced with pain as soon as his feet hit the dirt, but he stretched out an arm and the girl hugged his other side sniffling loudly.

"He's wounded," Brynden said quietly, edging closer to Sandor. "Quite badly. I have to get him out of here."

"Aye," Sandor agreed, taking in the way the younger man was gingerly petting his little sister. There were tears streaming down his face, catching in his beard and sparkling like dew in the moonlight. "Take him south if you can. Beric Dondarrion-"

"What of him?" Tully asked sharply. There hadn't been time earlier to make a full report, Sandor realized. He had not told the Blackfish of his success with the Brotherhood, though he wasn't sure it mattered now.

"He's hiding out in the woods. Take the king to him." Beric Dondarrion had lived and remained traceless for over a year. If anyone could keep Robb Stark safe for a time, it would be the Lightning Lord and his band.

"How?"

"Send word. Inn at the Crossroads. Leave a message for Anguy. Keep him out of sight. You'll be pigeons on a fence, target practice, come sunup." If they didn't get a move on soon, they'd be picked off in the moonlight. It wouldn't take long for the Freys and the Boltons to realize that their most prized victim was not among the dead.

The Blackfish looked at him dolefully. "Our men will scatter. I fear the Lannisters have won this round."

"There will be others," Sandor replied. The older man nodded in agreement, setting his jaw. He was experienced enough to hear the truth in those words.

"It isn't over," Brynden said, fatigue and weariness in each syllable. Fatigue and ferocity.

"Not until we're all dead," Sandor replied. Brynden Tully fell silent, looking at his niece and nephew, still holding each other in the dark. Robb Stark stumbled, his strength fading. "What of her?" Sandor asked, tilting his chin at the girl clinging to her brother. "Is she to go with you, now?"

"No," Robb Stark rasped. "It isn't safe." Arya pulled a little away from him, her small face white and pinched in the dark light of the forest. Robb ran his hand over her hair and the child whimpered. "She won't be safe with me."

"I'm going with you," she said fiercely, her voice rising until it became a squeak.

"Keep your voice down," Sandor growled. He turned his attention back to the King. "Where, then?"

Robb looked at the Blackfish. The man sighed heavily.

"Lysa Arryn," he said quietly. "Take her to the Eyrie. Her aunt will look after her there. Only family she has left."

"Robb-" she cried.

"No, Arya," he replied weakly, trying to smile. "You'll go with Clegane. He'll keep you safe, I promise you."

"You trust him?" she asked. "How can you trust him?"

"He saved my life," Robb choked. "He tried to save all our lives, and I-I didn't listen. I should have listened." He turned and looked at Sandor, but he could not hold his gaze. Too much pain.

"I'll keep her safe," Sandor rasped. "Come now, little wolf."

Arya had fully backed away from her brother, her little body tense as if poised for a fight.

"Please, Arya," Robb said, leaning against his uncle's horse. His face had gone bone white and Sandor was impressed that he had not yet fainted. The lad had lost a lot of blood if the shining stain on his cloak was any indication.

"We can't waste more time," Sandor said, swinging down. He went to the King and pushed him up behind his uncle. The young man could barely hang on. Sandor sighed, wondering if Robb Stark would make it to sunrise, turning his attention back to Arya. "If you want him to live, wolf girl, if _you_ want to live, we need to go."

"I don't want to lose you, too, Arya," Robb said weakly, eyes like embers as he looked at his little sister. Terrible struggle contorted her face for an instant, but then she marched to Stranger and clambered up on his back, facing forward with dry eyes, her hands folded on the pommel.

Sandor swung up behind her, and, nodding to the Blackfish, turned Stranger's face north. The child clung to him, twisting in her seat to look over his shoulder, watching as her brother and uncle disappeared through the underbrush to the south. When they were out of sight, she continued to hang on to him like a burr, her face buried against shoulder and her little body silent and still.

A/N: Terrified to post this. Entering uncharted waters, all in service to the endgame. Be gentle, but please let me know what you think. As always, I appreciate all readers and reviewers. You've all helped me become a much better writer, and I'm grateful for your continued readership and kind words.


	52. Chapter 52

Lenna LII

They sent two ravens from the inn at the Kingsroad. One to Riverrun, the other to White Harbor. Lenna was left exhausted and weary, and Wendel prevailed upon her to stay some days at the inn to wait as their wheelhouse and the rest of the guard caught up. Instead of feeling better, she instead felt worse, in a state of constant worry that the raven would not reach Riverrun in time.

Wendel had insisted that only his name be attached to it with no mention of her. This was prudent and she knew it. In all likelihood it would be burned as soon as it was received, but if it was intercepted, her brother wanted there to be as little association with her as possible. She was supposed to be theirs, after all.

It took three more weeks for them to reach White Harbor, and Lenna felt each step in the road like it was a blow to the ribs. She could barely eat from worry, even water making her stomach roil. She didn't even bother to try in the mornings, not wanting to retch from her saddle in front of the men. At midday and in the evenings, she could take a bit of bread and the weak tea Wendel insisted on brewing, and she slept like the dead each night, even when all she had between her and the ground was her cloak. Every bit of her ached, her breath coming short even when she wasn't exerting herself. Her head hurt, probably from the lack of water and food, and every time she dismounted, she had to lean her forehead against her palfrey's flank for a good minute to stop the dizziness from taking her legs out from under her.

It was well after nightfall when they reached White Harbor, Lenna insisting that they continue rather than passing the night in the shadow of its walls. The city glowed lustrously in the moonlight, but the sight of the New Castle and its pale ramparts did not fill her with joy as it had in the past. If anything, it made her more miserable. Sandor was supposed to be riding through the gate with her, but it was her brother at her side instead when they mounted the Castle Stair. In the dark, the mermaids' faces were lit eerily, the oil cradled in their arms licking at their features and making them look almost sinister. Lenna swallowed heavily, leaning forward and gripping her reins tightly. At the castle gate, the red-headed captain of the household guard didn't even greet them before sending a soldier running to fetch their father.

It was shortly before midnight when they halted in the courtyard. Wendel dismounted as quickly as his size allowed, nearly running to her. Lenna wondered vaguely why he was in such a rush, looking down at him in confusion.

"Let me help you," he said, his words sounding as if he was far away rather than at her ankle. She shook her head. She didn't need help to mount or dismount a horse, and she tried to swing her leg over, nearly falling backwards.

"Lenna." She heard her father's voice, then saw him as he rushed toward her across the paving stones. She wanted to laugh to see him in his robe, white hair mussed from sleep. He reached up to her with an expression of concern and fear, not with joy, but she lifted her arms toward him anyways, slipping ungracefully down the side of the horse and into his embrace. When her feet hit the ground, her legs went out from under her as if she had been hamstrung, and the last thing she saw before she slipped into the dark were the faces of her father and her brother, wild-eyed and frantic as their mouths moved but she couldn't hear them.

She woke without knowing where she was. She tried to sit up but failed, rubbing the heels of her hands across her eyes. She was sore, her mouth dry as cotton and her eyes bleary and full of sand, as if she had been asleep for a long time. She let out a little groan at the stiffness in her neck, and someone gasped at her side.

"Oh thank the Seven, you're awake."

She blinked a few times to find Wynna next to her, one of her hands caught up in both of her niece's. Wynna was leaning over her, the long rope of her hair brushing Lenna's face before the younger woman flipped it back over her shoulder. She peered down at Lenna with a deeply furrowed brow, running a cool hand over Lenna's forehead and smoothing her hair, eyes fraught with worry.

"How long," Lenna asked, or, rather, rasped. She tried to clear it, but the obstruction remained even when she tried again. "How long have I been asleep?"

"You came in at midnight and slept all day yesterday and through the night again. You didn't stir, not once," Wynna replied, her voice shaking as she sat down on the edge of the mattress. She leaned her face down close to Lenna's. "We were very concerned, dear."

"Papa?" she asked suddenly. She'd been home an entire day? "Wendel?"

"I'll fetch them," Wynna said, squeezing her hand. "They've been taking turns sitting with you." Lenna made to sit up, but found herself being gently pushed back into the bank of pillows as Wynna tutted. "Don't you move, now."

Wynna was gone for only an instant, and Lenna could hear her speaking low to a servant in the hallway. The younger girl was at her bedside again without delay, taking up her hands and warming them between her own.

"You gave us such a fright," she said, running her hand over Lenna's hair, her face. Wynna's hands were cool, and they soothed her. Her niece tried to smile, but Lenna noticed that it did not warm her eyes.

"I must have fainted. I was so tired," Lenna replied dumbly. She could remember nothing after a few days ago, and certainly had no recollection of arriving in White Harbor. She looked around, taking some comfort in being in her old rooms, the window open to the sea. It was bright out, sunlight streaming in and pooling on the floor. She could hear the cry of gulls, and the harbor breeze made the wispy curtains billow and swell like the sails of the ships on the wharf.

"That's why we let you sleep," Wynna said, her voice soft and musical. She had grown into a striking young woman, nearly as tall as Lenna with the high cheekbones of Adalyn Locke, her rich brown hair glinting with hints of umber and auburn. Lenna smiled at her, catching the other woman's fingers in hers.

"What time is it?" Lenna asked, suppressing a yawn. She was already feeling restless. She wanted to get up, her back aching from being abed so long.

"Almost midday," Wynna replied, bringing her a cup of water. "How do you feel?"

"Groggy, like I slept a long time. Otherwise fine," Lenna said with a perplexed laugh. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"We need to get some food in you." She almost smiled at Wynna's air of authority, wondering where she'd gotten it from. She fancied she wasn't much different when she felt more herself.

"No," Lenna replied quickly. Even the thought of bread made her feel queasy. Truth be told, her stomach was still upset. She didn't think she could eat anything quite yet. "I'm fine."

"Drink this," Wynna said, handing her the water. "And eat a piece of bread."

"I'm not hungry."

Wynna levelled her gaze at her, and Lenna saw something there other than concern. "You haven't taken food in three days. Add to that, Father says you haven't been eating much for weeks, and that you've been ill."

Even with her mind still muddled, Lenna didn't deny the truth. "That's not unusual on the road, is it?"

"In the mornings." Her niece was looking at her pointedly.

"Wynna," she said, reaching for the girl's hand. She sighed. "Give it here, then."

She took the cup of water and forced down a morsel of the bread. It was good brown bread, sweetened with honey. She felt quite green, but also triumphant. She didn't know how to explain to Wynna that she didn't want to eat, couldn't eat until they'd had some news.

"Take some cheese now," Wynna said, thrusting it under her nose.

Lenna's eyes widened and her stomach heaved as she pushed Wynna's hand away. The smell was too much for her, and she barely made it to the basin before she emptied the meager contents of her stomach. She wiped the back of her hand across her mouth and turned angrily toward her niece, taking a step back to see Wynna smiling softly back at her.

"Why-"

"When did you last have your moonblood?" Wynna asked quickly, cutting her off, hands folded primly as she looked back at her aunt.

Lenna sat down on the edge of her bed on watery legs, deep in thought. The truth was, she couldn't really remember her last moonblood. Sometime on the road, she thought, just before they reached Riverrun. She faintly recalled that she'd been ashamed of it, but it hadn't seemed to bother Sandor, not one bit. In fact, he seemed relieved when she'd stuttered her excuses to him one night when he reached for her, and she guessed she had been, too. They hadn't always been particularly careful.

"Two months," she whispered. "Maybe three. Wynna...Wynna, do you think-"

"Uncle Wendel believes so," she replied quietly. "He was worried. He said you wouldn't eat on the road, that certain things made you ill. If you haven't had your moonblood...I'll send for a midwife, just to be sure."

Lenna nodded absently, still perched on the edge of her bed. She stared at the patch of sunlight on her floor as it imperceptibly shifted. Her feet dangled off her bed like a child's and she felt so small as she waited, scared and hesitant.

The midwife came and subjected Lenna to the most embarrassing examination of her life, but the woman had kind eyes set above chubby, rosy cheeks, and when she smiled and nodded, Lenna wept.

It was what she had wanted, wasn't it? His child growing in her. But he was supposed to be there with her, watching over them both. She didn't even know how she was could let him know. Surely, there must be a way to tell him that he was going to be a father. That she was going to have his pup. It was the worst possible time, and she was torn between despairing fear and a strange, golden sensation of warmth that threatened burst through her skin.

"He's supposed to be here," she said between sobs, clutching Wynna's thin form to her own. Her niece cradled her gently, her fingers running through her short curls.

"Grandmother had Father when Grandpapa was at war," she said quietly. Lenna closed her eyes, feeling foolish but entirely unable to stop the tears that coursed down her cheeks. Wynna let out a soft sound of impatience and turned Lenna's face to her own. She was smiling, her eyes happy, and Lenna was grateful. "You have us, you have your family. He'll be back soon."

"Will he?" she asked, searching her niece's face as if she knew the answer. Lenna had spent weeks asking it, her mind and her heart fighting with each other as fiercely as warriors.

"Of course," Wynna replied, her brow furrowed as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Of course, he will come back. What do you think he would say?"

"Nothing," Lenna said, turning back to her niece. "He would say nothing. But he would weep."

"Then let that be enough for now," Wynna whispered, wiping her cheeks with steady fingers. Lenna wondered when she had grown up, their roles so thoroughly reversed. "And let us be glad, hm? A baby, Lenna." Her brows rose and she beamed down at Lenna as she linked their hands and pressed them, biting her lip and giggling like a child. "Do you hope for a boy or a girl?"

"I don't care," Lenna replied, a small, bright beacon igniting in her chest. "I don't care. It's enough that it's his."

"I always knew it was so," Wynna whispered. "I am so very happy for you. So very, very happy."

Lenna returned her smile as Wynna kissed her soundly on the forehead. A knock sounded on the half-open door, and Wyman Manderly stepped cautiously into the room. Lenna had not truly seen him yet, just his face swimming before her eyes before she fainted in the courtyard. She stood and he came to her, gathering her up in his arms.

"My girl," he said gruffly, kissing her cheek. "At last where you are supposed to be."

"Aye, grandpapa," Wynna replied. "And Lenna has news."

Lenna looked between the girl's sparkling eyes and her father's patient and expectant face.

"The midwife says that I am with child," she said quietly. She half feared her father's reaction to such tidings. Part of her felt that he would be anxious, but he surprised them all by going pink with pleasure and laughing as he kissed his only daughter again.

"Didn't waste any time, did you, lass?" The comment made Lenna go bright scarlet. She wanted to sink into the floor. "No, girl," he continued, his eyes dancing as he took her shoulders in his hands. "No cause for maidenly embarrassment. It is the natural way of things. Why, your mother gave me Wylis almost nine moons to the day after our marriage. It will be a good thing to have a babe in this castle again. It isn't the best timing," he said, white whiskers wagging. "But a new life is something for us to celebrate."

Lenna allowed the fear to fall away then, though she wished with all her being that Sandor was there to hear such news. She had only told Wynna the half of it. She was sure that he would weep, but he would also be overjoyed, and she so wanted to see the wonder that would play in his eyes, to see him go still and reverent. More than anything, she wanted to be wrapped up in his arms, his lips pressed to her hair as he took it in. He would sit silent for a while, and when he spoke after it would be of some practicality, but she would be able to hear his joy, his pride.

"Clegane will be pleased, I dare say," Wyman said, still encircling her shoulders with his beefy arms. "We'll certainly being praying for his speedy return, won't we?"

Lenna was trundled back into bed to rest before dinner, a mug of tea made with ginger and mint at her bedside, a slice of lemon floating on top. She lay against her pillows, again exhausted, but her mind too busy for sleep. She stared at the tapestry of the canopy, her eyes tracing the familiar images of her childhood: sea-dragons, whales, schools of fish in silver thread, a mermaid and a merman with the familiar green hair of her family's crest. She'd had this room since her birth, always fascinated by the stories in the canopy, on the walls of the Merman's court, in the books of her father's library, wishing to share them even when there was no one who wanted to listen.

She smiled, feeling foolish when she pressed her palm to her abdomen, but not so foolish that she removed it. She smiled again to think that there would be someone to tell her stories to, to catch up in her arms and settle in her lap, a child to cuddle and love here in the same stout walls where she had grown up.

"You can't hear me," she whispered, "or perhaps you can." She stopped for a moment, feeling too silly, but joy burbled up in laughter and she couldn't stop herself. "I'm going to choose to believe that you can hear me, little one. I have so much to tell you."

So, instead of napping, she whispered her stories, describing the pictures above their heads and feeling for the first time since she'd left Riverrun that she was not alone.

The news of what would later be called the Red Wedding was delivered a scant week and a half later. They were all seated in the Merman's Court for breakfast when Maester Loren bore in the scroll. It was like any other morning delivery, and Lenna paid him little heed over the rim of her mug. The mint and ginger tea was the only thing that seemed to help with the nausea, and she was on her third cup. She reached for a pastry as the Maester passed, thinking that perhaps she was settled enough for something bland. She was so preoccupied in choosing between blackberry or apple that she didn't mark the tremble in the Maester's fingers as he delivered the scroll first to Wyman, who read it and, turning ashen, handed it to his son.

Wyman Manderly surprised them all by slamming his fist into the table top with a force Lenna had never seen. Her father was seldom truly angry, peeved perhaps, but not enraged. He had turned almost purple now, all the tendons in his thick neck pulsing and pushing through his skin as he gritted his teeth. It was then that Lenna saw the tears drop from the corners of his eyes, wending their way into his beard, and her heart stuttered and was overtaken with fear.

"It is a good thing you would never have made it in time," Wyman said, mastering himself and rising slowly to walk the length of the great room.

"Oh gods," Wendel said soon after, folding over the table with his head in his hands, the parchment crumpled in his shaking fist. Lenna was shocked to see the heave of his shoulders, a deep throated sob rending the torturous silence.

"What?" Lenna asked lowly, her breath coming shallow and quick, a roaring beginning in her ears. "What is it?"

"Do not upset your sister," Wyman barked, turning sharply to look at his son. Wendel was sitting upright again, but his face was a portrait of despair. "Wendel-"

"I do not know how not to upset her," Wendel replied brokenly. "I...there is nothing for it."

"Give it here," Lenna said, snatching the scroll from her brother. She feared the worst, that the little raven had brought her news of his death, that her child was fated to never meet its father.

She felt guilty at the relief that flooded her at Brynden Tully's words. The raven had been sent from an inn near the Twins, one she and Wendel had stayed in. The old lord's handwriting was shaky and slanting, and she could read his distress in the very shape of the letters. As she read, she was filled with icy dread and despair, feeling her own throat close off and her eyes smart.

 _Manderly,_

 _The Freys and Boltons are as your son believed. We have been massacred at the Twins. Only King Robb survives, gravely wounded. His mother, his wife, and most of his bannermen were slaughtered at their supper the night Lord Edmure wed Walder Frey's daughter. I am returning to Riverrun to see what may be done, what defense may be mounted. The North and its cause are slaughtered, too, I fear._

 _Tell the lady that he was not among the dead. Tell them both that we tried, he and I, but the King would not listen. I hope we may rely on you, but know you will act as you deem fit._

He did not sign it, letting his seal speak for him. Lenna looked at it carefully. It had not been intercepted, the seal unbroken and not bearing the dull signs of having been affixed a second time. She let out a shuddering sigh that was almost a sob and passed it to Wynna. She leaned forward, bracing her head with her hands, but she could not cry. She felt so very cold.

"Lenna," Wyman said gently from the hearth. "Are you alright?"

She nodded tightly. "Aye. He lives. It is terrible of me, but I only care that he lives."

"He does," Wyman said quietly. "So many others-"

"Talisa Stark was my friend," she whispered. "Lady Catelyn sewed my wedding cloak not three months ago. These men who were with the King, we knew them all. I do not believe Lord Tully is right, though. The North has not been slaughtered."

"What are we to do?" Wynna asked, and Lenna was dismayed to see true fear in her niece's eyes. They had done such a fine job of protecting her, of protecting Wylla, learning from past mistakes. The girls did not know the flavor of such conflict, such danger, and Lenna tasted the bitterness of bile to see her own old fears written on the younger woman's face.

"Watch," Lenna said, clasping her hand, "and wait."

They gave her no comfort, their words. She was greatly distressed, but despite wanting to desperately, she could not find tears to shed for her dead friends. Only the idea of Talisa and her poor baby made her eyes prick.

"Excuse me," she said quietly, no longer able to stomach sitting there and doing nothing. She rose and fetched her hood, setting off at a brisk walk to the Sept of Snows. It wasn't until she was the top of the Castle Stair and a slim hand slid into her elbow that she realized Wynna had followed her.

"We shall go together," Wynna said. "And pray."

It was all they could do. The two of them went daily, Wylla sometimes joining them, though often impatient with the amount of time they spent there. Weeks passed, then a month. Lenna torn between torment and fear and the riotous joy when she thought of the life growing in her. She had taken to talking to him or her, telling them stories and shushing her own fears with words of comfort. She was quite confident that the baby could hear her, and she sometimes felt the most peculiar fluttering, like moths or sparrow's wings against her ribs.

She was at the foot of the Mother, praying for Sandor and his return, and the child was participating, that strange quivering making her smile even as Wylla paced up and down the length of the Sept, her fingers balled into fists at her side.

"Why can't we _do_ something," she growled, stopping at the feet of the Mother. Lenna and Wynna were both kneeling in prayers, their candles on the floor before them.

"What do you suggest?" Wynna asked placidly, her eyes still closed as she knelt by Lenna's side. "Ride out and slaughter the Freys?"

Lenna sighed, the trembling of the child subsiding. It always saddened her, and her niece's squabbling was making her somber mood even darker.

"Why not?" Wylla shot back waspishly. "It's better than nothing."

"This is not nothing," Lenna said gently, and both of them turned to look at her. "We ask the Seven for justice. We ask them for protection."

"They didn't save our friends," Wylla said.

"They tried," Lenna replied, trying to quell the doubt that had been plaguing her in the months since Lord Eddard's death. She wasn't sure if she believed there was anyone listening herself, one of her few comforts slowly fading away. "I truly believe that they tried."

Wynna reached over and laid her slender hand on her arm.

"You did everything you could," she said quietly. "They didn't listen to Wendel. But you did everything you could."

"No," Lenna replied matter-of-factly, eyes still closed. "I could have slit Walder Frey's throat, and I didn't."

The girls looked at each other as if trying to determine if she was serious or not. Lenna had not told them of Grag Locke, she hadn't told anyone but Wendel. She could barely articulate how terribly guilty she felt about the failure of her courage at the Twins, even though she knew in the greater scheme it would have meant nothing. The Freys would still have turned on them, and their friends and kinsmen would still be dead, with or without Walder. She would only have succeeded in adding her own name to the long roll of the dead.

"My lady."

All three turned to the page that stood at the top of the stairs. Lenna rose to her feet, the lad's eyes on her.

"Yes?" she replied, hugging her torso against the strange sensation of expectation, though she did not know what it was she expected.

"I was bid to bring you back. You've received a raven," the lad said. His eyelids fluttered as he swallowed hard to deliver the rest of his message. "From King's Landing, my lady."

She walked so quickly that the other two struggled to keep up with her. They couldn't go fast enough in her mind, their slippers moving soundlessly over the cobblestones as they made their way through the quiet streets, nodding to the passersby as they went. Lenna kept her feelings of nervousness off her face, not at all looking forward to the message waiting for her, but the people of White Harbor looked to the Manderlys in all things, especially now that tidings of the Red Wedding, the missing King, and the rise of the Boltons and the Freys had broken. It would not do for any of them to appear afraid, even for a moment.

Once inside the Keep, she went immediately to her father's study, the girls still in tow behind her. On his desk lay a scroll, her name neatly written on it. Only, instead of the dreaded lion, there was a rose embedded into the wax seal. Wylla looked at it in confusion, reaching out to pick it up.

"No," Lenna said quickly, herself a mire of confusion, a knot of strange feeling. She had no idea why a Tyrell would be writing to her, but she knew that her nieces could not be mixed up in whatever plotting was afoot. Not until she knew what was in that scroll. "The girls cannot be here."

"Lenna," Wylla said, picking it up and holding it out, her lips pressed together saucily. "We have a right to know."

"You have no such thing," Lenna spat, regretting her tone with Wylla backed away like she'd been smacked across the face. "Go. Now." When they would not leave, instead exchanging stricken glances, Lenna looked to her father in pleading. "I will not endanger them with whatever is in that scroll. Please, Papa."

Wyman Manderly, stone-faced and silent, nodded to the two girls. Wylla nearly stamped her foot in petulance, but Wynna took her sister by the arm and practically dragged her out of the room, closing the door behind. She nodded to Lenna once before she went, and Lenna breathed a little easier for it. Wynna would handle her sister while Lenna dealt with this unexpected business.

"Why would I receive something from the Tyrells?" she asked almost absently, picking up the scroll carefully and tracing her finger above the seal. She was stalling, plain and simple. Once it was broken, it could not be undone, and she did not have a good feeling about this communication.

"Best open it and find out," her father said gruffly. She glanced up at him, sliding her finger beneath the wax and breaking it, the flower splitting in two.

 _Lady Helenna,_

 _Niece- I will call you so and remind you of the blood that ties you to me. Circumstances being what they are, I have need of you now and do not believe it when they sing about your loyalty and service. None of us has ever belonged to them, nor ever will._

 _I have gathered that you are like me, like your late mother, and as such, I may dispense with the entreaties for discretion. No need to reply, only accept the parcel that will arrive for you from my keeping. Guard it, keep it safe for me. It has a purpose that cannot be served here, as you will very quickly understand._

 _I will say no more on the subject now. Seven bless you, my niece and my namesake._

 _Olenna Tyrell_

"Niece?" Lenna said, looking down at the parchment in confusion. "Namesake?"

Wyman Manderly had gone quite scarlet. "Of course," he replied roughly. "Lady Olenna, born a Redwyne. Your mother didn't care for the name, but your grandmother insisted. They bickered about it, but settled on Helenna, then Lenna. After her."

"Grandmother Melleah was her sister," Lenna said, no expression in her voice, just a statement of fact. She had heard stories of the Queen of Thorns with her sharp mind and acid tongue, two things she would never have associated with her kindly, well-bred grandmother. Melleah Redwyne had been beautiful in her day, quiet and celebrated for her gentle nature and good sense, just as Lenna's own mother had been. Just as she had always aspired to be known herself. Her mother and grandmother were her patterns for ladyship, and she could not at that moment determine why this woman, whom she had never met, would think they were alike in any way.

"Aye," he replied, clearing his throat. "They were different as they could be, but still remarkably close they say. Malleah was dedicated to her sisters in their youth, but Olenna was less than impressed by her sister's choice of husband. Broke your grandmother's heart from what your mother told me. Wouldn't even attend out of spite. The marriage drove a wedge between them."

"Grandmother married the lord of Oldcastle," Lenna said quietly. It wasn't a great city, but her grandmother's seat was comfortable and prosperous. "He was not a poor match."

"But Olenna had married the lord of Highgarden. A Lord Paramount," her father replied. "Malleah's match was paltry in comparison. Your grandmother married for love, Olenna for power."

Lenna shook her head. "Be that as it may, why is she writing to me now? I have never heard from her before."

"No," her father said. "But she was rather fond of your mother. Adalyn spent quite a bit of time in Highgarden in her youth. It was Olenna that arranged for your mother to be a lady-in-waiting in King's Landing. She only had Mace. I think she'd always rather hoped for a daughter. After Adalyn died-"

"What?"

"She blamed me. Said I had killed her." Her father's face had gone pale as putty, his whiskers trembling. She knew it pained him to think of her, especially in her illness.

"Mother was sick," Lenna said, laying her hand on her father's papery wrist.

"I know," he replied, his forehead troubled. "I know that. But I do regret not bringing you home. Olenna was very vocal about your going to King's Landing, going to _them._ She mentioned it in every letter she wrote, until your mother stopped responding. There was nothing we could say to appease her. We certainly couldn't disclose our suspicions. She accused your mother of being ambitious," he scoffed. "As if Adalyn ever took after her in that way."

"That was a long time ago," Lenna said, trying to dispel the sudden gloom in the chamber. "I'm sure you and mother did what you thought best. She is rather cryptic, isn't she? What could she possibly wish to send me?"

"I'm sure we will find out soon enough," he muttered, squinting as he looked out the window, the deeply carved grooves about his eyes turning his face into a desert of worry. "Olenna always managed to dig her nails into things. I have been trying, and failing, to keep us out of all this business. There is nothing for it."

"What is wrong, Papa?" It was not a graceful question. There was too much turmoil, but she could almost see whatever it was weighing on him, pressing him down into the soles of his own boots.

Wyman sighed heavily, wiping a hand across his face. "I do not wish to trouble you."

"You trouble me by not keeping me informed," she said baldly, her temper spiking. She let out a little laugh to quell it. "I'm with child, papa, not feeble-minded."

"Sit," he said, and Lenna did as she was told, settling into the chair before his desk. Wyman continued to pace back and forth behind his table. "Walder Frey has been named Lord Paramount of the Riverlands by Joffrey. Bolton has been made Warden of the North."

The news was not shocking. She more or less expected something of the like, but still, she took a deep breath, doubling down on the anger that boiled in her chest in response.

"Go on. That is upsetting as it is, but I have a suspicion you have more to say." She folded her hands in her lap, one on top of the other so she could press her fingers together. The child fluttered against her ribs and she found calm.

"Aye," her father replied. "News from King's Landing. Joffrey has set aside Sansa Stark."

"Of course he has," Lenna replied succinctly, wondering if he thought she'd be taken aback. "We knew that. We knew he was going to marry Margaery Tyrell long ago."

"Yes, but he has betrothed Sansa to his uncle."

"Jaime?" she blurted in confusion, only realizing the mistake in saying his name so when her father looked at her sharply.

"No," he replied shortly. "Lord Tyrion."

"Is that all?" Lenna replied, looking up at him. If anything, she could describe the loosening in her chest as relief. "That is not so dreadful as Frey and Bolton."

"Is it not?" he asked flatly.

"Tyrion is a far-sight better than Joffrey," she replied. "He might not be what Sansa wanted, but considering the alternatives, she is better served being under Tyrion's protection than no one's."

"Yes, his protection did so well for you." Her father's face was shuttered and bitter. "It is not only that," he said slowly. "The Lannisters are spreading word that Robb Stark is dead, killed in the massacre at the Twins."

"But he escaped, and we have heard nothing different from Lord Brynden," Lenna replied, her breath coming short. "He lives."

"Aye," her father said. "We pray that he does, but they are hunting him, surely. And aim to find him and kill him before word that he survived can be spread. They are moving quickly to consolidate their power here. I am expecting an envoy from Walder Frey any day now."

"You will not welcome them, surely," she said lowly. "You will turn them away at the gate."

Wyman cocked his head to look at her, hands steepled across his gut.

"How would you propose that I turn them away, daughter? While King Robb is in hiding and his army scattered to the winds, I am bound to safeguard my people. If I do not at least appear to acquiesce to them, to welcome them beneath our battlements, who is to say they won't return and do to us what they have done to the Starks? To the Hornwoods? No, daughter, you are too smart to be so petty."

"And why are the Frey's coming?" She knew the answer well enough, but she didn't know if her did.

"You know why they come," he said shortly. "Perwyn Frey wishes to bid for you. A pretty solution for an ugly problem. Remind me of my place, my responsibility, and take you from me again."

"And you will tell him no," Lenna said acidly.

"Of course, but how I can possibly reject him out of hand I do not know."

"Offer me instead."

They both turned. Neither had heard the door open, but Wynna was standing in the doorway, her shoulders thrown back and her chin up.

"Wynna," Lenna said, shaking her head. "This isn't for you to bear."

"Why not?" she asked, her blue eyes meeting Lenna's green with a streak of stubborness she'd never displayed before, a thread of hot courage. "You have borne our troubles for far too long. It is about time one of us took on our share. Accept Lord Perwyn's suit, but on my behalf instead of Lenna's."

"Wynna, I can't-" Wyman said in a bark, his temple pulsing behind the white wisps of his hair.

"Why not?" Wynna asked. "How is offering me in a sham betrothal any different than offering Lenna? She won't go through with it. Even if she was free to do so, you'd never let that happen."

"They have made a suit for you already," Wyman said through clenched teeth, pinching the bridge of his nose. "And Wylla, too. Ramsay Bolton and Little Walder Frey. They want all of you, all of _me._ But you are right, I will not let this come to pass. I just haven't figured out how to slither out of it yet."

Lenna and her niece exchanged a look of concern. Lenna was not worried, not for her own part, not even for Wynna. It was her father that she ached for. He was weary, and growing so old before her eyes.

"Papa," she said gently, rising and laying her hand on his shoulder. "All will be well. We will think of a way to handle this. All will be well."

He didn't look up at her, but he did noisily rub his hand over his face, as if wiping his worry away.

"Aye, girl," he replied dully. "At the very least, all will be."

Sandor LII

It was impossible to ride hard through the bracken in the dark, and he settled for picking their way through the underbrush at a steady pace. The child eventually relaxed her grip on his neck, sagging against his chest. He guessed she'd gone to sleep, and pursed his mouth wryly at that. It was all for the better. He had no idea what to say to her.

He couldn't think of the night before. There was nothing he could do. Brynden Tully had been right. If the King refused to listen, this fall was on his head. Why the boy would continue to ignore not just his warning, but that of Wendel Manderly, he couldn't fathom.

 _His mother_ , he thought bitterly. Tully had said it was his niece who had insisted on making the match despite the warning signs. He chased the thoughts away like banishing cobwebs. It didn't matter whose fault it was. The damage was done.

And, if he wasn't mistaken, it was fatal. He very much doubted Robb Stark would survive the night. The boy had lost too much blood, and more than that, he'd lost his will to live. Sandor had seen men die like that, their wounds not necessarily mortal but becoming so when they no longer cared about surviving. He'd seen his own entrails as a young man through a slit in his belly, but it hadn't occurred to him to die, so he didn't. Robb Stark was carrying a grievous injury, and his wife and mother, all of his bannermen, had been strewn bloody around him.

If he'd been there, and it had been Lenna lying dead on the floor and he'd been wounded, Sandor doubted he'd had made himself survive the night, either.

It didn't matter. The King in the North was no more, at least, not as he was, but Sandor was still bound by his agreement. He'd deliver this child safely to her aunt in the Eyrie, then make his way back to White Harbor. He'd do it, and be done with the lot of them, even if it meant running to Essos with her in tow. He was done with bleeding for anyone else.

The child woke and stirred at dawn, by which time he'd found a path through the trees. She sat up a little straighter in front of him, rubbing her eyes.

"Are you really going to take me to the Vale?" she asked, squinting up at him.

"Those were the orders," he replied, wondering if she was going to start talking. He didn't much feel like conversation just now. He was tired and it would be a long time before he rested.

"And you always follow orders," she said, a child's derision in her voice. He pulled Stranger up sharply.

"Say your piece," he growled.

"What-"

"Say it, wolf girl."

She took a deep breath. "One day, I'm going to take a knife and stab you in the eye until it comes out the other side of your head."

"Won't bring your family back," he barked. "Won't bring your friend back. Right now, child, I'm the best thing you've got. You wouldn't last a fucking week in these woods by yourself, let alone get to safety. You want to be angry with me? Fine. You want to hate me? Been hated my whole life, it doesn't bother me. But I said I was taking you to safety, and that's what I aim to do if I have to throw you in a sack and tie you to the saddlebow, do you understand?"

She was looking back at him sullenly.

"You have a lot of anger in you, child. I know what that feels like. I have it, too. But you want to survive, and that's what I know how to do. Do you want to know why I killed your friend? Because if I didn't, he'd have been tortured. If I didn't, I'd have left someone else exposed to the Lannisters without any protection."

"Who?" she demanded.

"None of your business," he said, snarling at her with a flash of teeth. "You don't get to decide what is right and wrong when you don't know all the details. When I killed your friend, it was a mercy. I didn't give a shit for the boy, could have easily knocked him out just as I did you last night, but I couldn't face-"

"You don't have a conscience."

"I have a code," he growled. "Man has to have a code. I don't torture, I'm not my brother, and I don't steal. If I'd brought the damn butcher's boy back alive, he'd have wished he was dead many months before it was finally granted to him. And you know what? Joffrey would have probably made you watch. You made an enemy that day, child, and he might have just been a boy, but that boy became a king, and it didn't matter that he was the worst shit in the Seven Kingdoms. He was still the king. What he did to your sister-" He stopped himself, lest he go too far.

"What did he do to Sansa?" Arya said, looking up. Then she scoffed. "She probably deserved it."

Sandor couldn't stop himself from seizing her by the front of her little tunic.

"No lady deserves to be treated the way your sister was," he said. "You are so angry for your butcher's boy, but you don't care that your sister was beaten and stripped, paraded about Joffrey's court like some Flea Bottom whore? That he threatened her with rape, with death? He made her visit your father's severed head. Made her stand and look at it. And you know what, little wolf, she did. She let him crow over her, didn't squeak when Meryn Trant backhanded her with his gauntlets on. She knew what she had to do."

"She just wants to be queen," Arya whispered, her face pained.

"No," Sandor replied, releasing her. "I wager she doesn't want that. Not anymore. And now she never will be. As you said, Joffrey's to marry Margaery Tyrell, and your sister has been put aside. She doesn't even have the safety of being his betrothed any more. Who is to say what will happen to her now?"

That shut the little wolf up, just as he hoped it would. He wished he could explain to her that his anger wasn't on her behalf, or even on her sister's. He didn't care about them, not really, but these damned Starks dealt collateral damage beyond their ken or their control. He doubted they had any idea the pain and destruction they left in their wake, rippling outward from their damn pride.

The child might have fallen silent, but she practically vibrated with anger. Sandor didn't care. He was too intent on getting them across the river and on their way southward s soon as possible.

He heard the men before he saw them, smelled their cooking fire. One of them was making fun of the child's mother, his reedy voice making exaggerated gurgling and choking sounds like his throat had been slit. Sandor had never minded killing, fuck, he enjoyed it, but he never made light of the lives he took, or the manner in which he took them. There was something about it that didn't sit well with him, and he was quite sure that this pimply-faced lad had had as much to do with Lady Catelyn's death as he had.

The child had perked up like a pup on a scent. He tightened his grip on the reins, intending to pass them by without incident, but the girl wriggled free and dropped to the ground, her arms straight down by her sides as she marched toward them.

Sandor cursed under his breath, getting Stranger out of sight and looping the bridle around a low-hanging tree branch before making his way back in the direction of the camp.

"I have money," he heard her say, proffering a coin. He had no idea where she'd gotten it, but he didn't miss how she dropped it purposefully. The lad reached out to grab it, and she fell on him in a frenzy, a knife in her hand as she stabbed him again and again, his blood covering her hands and face.

He groaned, glad that he was carrying his sword on his hip rather than strapped to his back as he sometimes did on long rides, unsheathing it as soon as the first of the lad's companions managed to get to his feet and go to his friend's aid.

It wasn't hard, even against three of them. The lad Arya Stark had taken was long dead, and his fellows followed quickly behind. He couldn't even enjoy it. There was no fight in them, and they had no idea what they were doing. He'd wager they'd all been farmers a few weeks before, their Frey armor too new to have seen any action.

He was barely winded when he came up behind her. She was staring down at the boy she'd killed, her face oddly blank.

"Where'd you get the knife?" he asked. He didn't bother asking why she'd done it. He knew why. Same reason he might have if it had been his mother, if it had been _her_.

"From you," she replied, handing it back to him by the hilt. He checked his boot ruefully, rolling his eyes.

"Next time you're going to do something like that," he said, "tell me first."

They didn't bother to hide the bodies. It didn't matter, he doubted they'd be found. Instead, he wiped his sword and the knife down, returning them to their proper places and retrieved Stranger. The child was still standing in the clearing.

"Is that the first man you've killed?" he asked, already knowing the answer.

"The first man," she replied. She half turned to him. "I suppose you're angry with me."

"Why would I be angry?" he responded. He was a little aggravated, but not because of what she'd done.

"They didn't do anything," she said.

"Of course they fucking did," he replied. "They're Frey men. They were mocking your mother, child. Even if he didn't wield the blade, he killed her as surely as Black Walder did. He's an enemy soldier. No need to feel guilty about it."

"Good," she replied lowly. It almost chilled him. "Because I don't."

He didn't say a word as she walked past him and waited for his help climbing up into the saddle. He swung up behind her and pointed the horse northwards once more.

She was a good travelling companion, he'd give her that. Never complained, though she did ask for a horse nearly everyday. He rebuffed her just as often.

"Why would I put you on your own horse?" he asked.

"I won't try to get away," she said huffily. "Like you said, I'd never last on my own."

"Where do you think I could even get one?"

"You could steal one," she suggested.

"I'm not a thief," he shot back.

"Right. You have a code," she said tersely. If the sarcasm had been a blade, it would have slid beneath his ribs and punctured his lung.

Still, when it came time to make camp, Arya Stark did not stay idle. They'd established a routine. He'd hunt for dry wood and she'd lay the kindling and tinder. If it passed his inspection, he'd retrieve the fire-flint and hand it to her. He hated striking it, and the child was strong enough. She never said a word.

He reached beneath his breastplate for his pouch to grab the fire-flint. As he did, his fingers caught the handkerchief that lay against his heart and it came fluttering out.

It seemed to him that time slowed as it fell to the ground, but he could not grasp it in time. The girl beat him to it, seizing it from the ground and holding it up.

"What's this?" she asked, looking at it closely. The fabric was filthy, stained by sweat and worse. He'd not taken his breastplate off in what felt like weeks. There had been no time to bathe, and he'd almost forgotten it was there.

 _Bollocks_ , he chided himself. _You know it's there_.

"Give it back," he said, holding out his hand with his heart in his throat, swallowing thickly to see it in the child's grasp. He lunged forward and she leapt back nimbly.

"Wait," she said, her eyes narrowing, examining the blackened embroidery. "I know this sigil."

"I said give it the fuck back," he growled, taking a step toward her. She countered by moving back two more.

"The white merman, at least he was white once- that's the sigil of House Manderly."

He did not respond, just looked at her in increasing agitation. He'd been able to control himself thus far, but she was testing what little patience he had left.

"Wolf-girl," he warned.

She started to unfold it to look at the merman better. He wanted to strike her, to wallop her across the face as she drew out the lock of hair tied with red silk.

"A lock of hair," she said dumbly. "Why would you carry a lady's handkerchief and a lock of hair?"

"Give. Them. Back," he choked.

He saw something flash across her face, a memory, or a realization.

"Wait. I heard something about her in Harrenhal. From Tywin."

He grunted.

"And Tywin was angry, he was telling the Mountain something about it," she paused and he felt like he was being strangled. "Gods, I remember now," she said, her eyes wide with shock. "He'd been out raiding, raiding and looking for her. Dondarrion, you two spoke of her. I was listening. He wanted to know what you'd done with her, had seen you with her. You kidnapped Lady Helenna."

"No," he said emphatically.

"You did," she said, her voice a squeak. "You abducted her and she hasn't been seen since."

"She has," he replied reasonably. "Just not by them."

"What did you do with her?" Arya asked lowly. "Why do you carry her handkerchief. Is it...some sort of trophy?"

"What kind of shit do you think about girl?" he demanded in revulsion. The child was strange. The way she'd stabbed that Frey soldier, over and over without so much as a grimace or a grin. "Why does a man carry a woman's handkerchief?"

"You can't mean- is that why you stole her?" Her eyes had narrowed with disgust, revulsion evident in her face, in posture, as she looked down on the scrap of cloth in distaste.

"I. Did. Not. Steal. Her." His voice rose with every word until he was yelling.

"Right, you're not a thief," she spat back. "So what would you call it then?"

"I took her home," he replied, his voice shaking. "I took her back to her people. Sent her to White Harbor so she would be safe."

"If that's all you did, then why carry-"

"She's my wife," he roared, spittle flying. He was panting hard, fists raised to his ribs and his heels grinding into the clay.

That shut her up. He had no idea what had possessed him to tell the girl that, knowing as he did that it would do neither of them any good. It certainly wouldn't do Lenna any good if that particular fact was spread around.

 _But who did the girl have to tell?_

"Vows made by force aren't binding," she said flatly, looking up at him with inscrutable dark eyes. She blinked, her stance softening, and he felt his own shoulders lower.

"No one forced her," he said, his eyes still intent on her somber face. "Or me, for that matter," he replied. "Though I didn't want-" He stood up and looked away, flexing his fingers.

"Lady Helenna was beautiful," Arya said, confusion in her voice. Sandor wanted to laugh. One moment, the girl was indignant at the idea, the next defending his lady's virtues. "And kind."

His throat closed off and he struggled to clear it. "Aye."

"Why wouldn't you-"

"Didn't want to fucking tie her to the likes of me," he said quickly, glaring at the child. "No woman deserves that. Especially not now."

The girl's face had gone somber, her brow knitting together as she looked back at the cloth in her hands. She carefully tucked the curl back into the handkerchief and handed it out to him.

"Sorry," she said quietly.

He didn't reply, sliding the little parcel back under his breastplate with a sharp breath through his nose. Some of the pain that had erupted beneath its customary spot abated. Abated, but didn't disappear. He knew she'd noticed that he placed it on the left.

"Do you love her, then?" she asked flatly.

He grunted.

"And she loves you?" she asked. A lancing pain cut through him and he gritted his teeth against it.

"Aye. Said so. Insisted on a fucking marriage."

"In the godswood?"

"No, the Sept at Riverrun."

"Her family?"

"Wendel Manderly fucking walked her down the aisle, is that what you're asking? If it's a secret?"

"I guess," she said uncertainly.

"It is, but not from them. It was done proper, cloaks and all. Even a feast. Your brother was there. Your mother sewed her maiden's cloak, stood with her."

"Where is she, then? Why are you here?"

"She's where she's safest, as you will be if you keep your fucking mouth shut and do as you're told. As to the other...there's a war on, or haven't you noticed?"

"Why would you care?"

"Because," he ground out, not knowing how to finish it. He'd thought about it many times. Why did he care? He had no stake in these petty games of lordlings. _But she does_. Marriage or no, they had no future unless she came out on the right side of things. And he so badly wanted a future, one that was more complete than merely breathing another day.

"I want to see her again," he said at last. "Is that good enough for you? I want to see her and have a fucking chance. Not going to happen until this mess is fucking sorted out. Your father's fucking mess."

"Don't you talk about my father." The little pup had a bark in her.

He had plenty of his own. "Why not? If he'd just kept his mouth shut-"

"Joffrey would still be king," she protested, her face contorted and turning red in rage.

"Aye," he replied. "But your sister would be the next queen, and you'd be a great lady."

"Not for me," she spat, and he got the impression she was no longer talking to him. She calmed as quickly as she'd boiled over, a wistful crinkle in her brow.

"No," he said wryly. "Not for you, little wolf."

"My sister-" she breathed.

"Lenna tried to protect her. We both did," he said, thinking about how he'd asked Lenna not to bother with the Stark girl. To save herself. They had come so close to being caught because she couldn't abandon the girl. "When we left...your sister wouldn't come."

"Lenna," Arya said, arching a brow at him.

"Aye, Lenna," he growled. "Allowed to speak my own wife's name, aren't I?"

To his surprise, Arya smiled at him, her crooked child's grin. It made his cheeks flush. She shook her head in delighted surprise, a giggle that reminded him of how young she was bubbling up, a sharp report of mirth.

"I'd never have thought-" She was holding her sides, nearly pissing herself.

"Shut it," he murmured, his heart not in it.

The girl took a long time to sober, seizing the fire-flint and stoking the flame. She would glance at him from time to time and giggle anew. He eventually tired of it, hunting down some rabbits and bringing them back, skinning them more roughly than he needed to before spitting them.

They didn't speak for a long while, but after the rabbits had been reduced to bones and skins, Arya folded her knees up under her chin, her arms wrapped around her legs. She leaned her cheek against her kneecaps and turned her large eyes on him. The child missed little, and he felt bare under that gaze.

"What do you mean, Sansa wouldn't come?"

He sighed, torn between explaining and telling the girl to shut it again. He settled for explaining. She'd know he was lying anyway.

"Lenna and me, we ran. During the Blackwater." He stirred the coals to avoid having to look at her.

"You deserted."

He shook his head savagely, jabbing at the embers until they sparked. "I saved her," he said, rearing back from the heat, remembering the wildfire. "Tried to save your sister, but she wouldn't listen to reason."

"Is Sansa...is Sansa dead?" she asked, her voice growing weak. Sandor closed his eyes.

"Not that I've heard. And I would have by now. The crown won that battle by a small margin. She's still in King's Landing from what I know."

"Safe." Such a fucking useless word.

"There's no safety, wolf-girl, only some places less dangerous than others," he said. "She's in the safest one for her, I would think. For now."

"At Joffrey's mercy."

Sandor snorted. "No such thing."

He regretted it instantly when he saw how the child's face clouded.

"Is the Eyrie the safest place for me?" she asked.

"Your brother and your uncle think so," he replied. Truth was, he didn't know. He'd always thought Lysa Arryn was crazy, her wild eyes and tight face watchful, suspicious. He hadn't missed her when she left King's Landing after her husband's death. The child might be safe, but she surely wouldn't be happy.

"I don't want to go to Aunt Lysa," she said at last. He chuckled, but he didn't dare tell her it didn't fucking matter what she wanted.

"Where would you go, then?" he asked, curious.

"Braavos."

"What the fuck would you do in Braavos?" he demanded with a laugh.

"There's a place there, where I have a friend."

The girl was crazy as a fox, too. He cleared his throat, "What kind of friend?"

"A Faceless Man."

Sandor laughed, but it was an uneasy mirth. "They don't exist. Just in tales."

Her eyes were flint when she looked back at him. "Not tales."

He cocked his head. "She'd have my head if-"

"Does she know?"

He felt his heart plummet. He'd not written, hadn't known the words to say. He shook his head.

"Then help me. Please. And I'll take you off my list."

He'd heard her each night, rattling off their names as he tried to sleep. He'd asked her about it, the annoyance when she'd spoke his name vaguely tinged with trepidation. The child was strange, and even if he scoffed at her, she was serious for her part.

He looked at her. "I'm under orders."

"You want to see her again, your wife, don't you? You won't if you don't help me. By the gods, I'll kill you."

He chuckled, but found that he still half believed her.

"I can't. I'm taking you to your aunt on the king's orders. Do you want to defy your king? Your brother?"

"Robb didn't know what he was saying," she replied stonily. "He was hurt." Her voice cracked at the last.

"Aye, wolf-girl," he said quietly, gentling his tone. "But your uncle agreed, and they gave me orders. You say you'll kill me, and I don't doubt you, but I have to follow my orders."

"You don't think for yourself-"

"I don't think of myself," he said in sharp retort. "You only think of what you want, what you need. All your Starks are the same. Your sister, she put Lenna in harm's way more times than I care to remember just from being thoughtless, only looking after her own skin. Not even that, her own comfort. And your brother. He brought this on himself, backing out of his deal with the Freys, didn't he? Only thinking of himself, of what he wanted. You want me to disobey my orders? I will never see her again if I do what you've asked me. Never. I won't sacrifice myself to do your bidding, Lady Stark."

She fell silent, looking at her hands. They were grubby, the nails close-bitten and ragged. He sighed.

"Go to sleep, wolf-girl," he said, retrieving the forgotten flint-stone and proceeding to unpack Stranger's bags.

It was going to be a long trip to the Eyrie.

A/N: Another one down. See you next week, I hope.


	53. Chapter 53

Lenna LIII

A month ago, the very thought that she would be waiting impatiently for the arrival of the Freys would have been ridiculous. Now, they could not get to White Harbor fast enough to suit her. Her gowns were beginning to grow tight in the waist, and she reckoned she had about a month, maybe two, before it would become difficult to explain away the changes. For now, rest and a steady diet could explain her ripening figure and the roses in her cheeks. Her face was fuller than it had been perhaps in a year or more, her ribs no longer standing out against her skin, and before long it would be impossible to disguise her condition.

The Freys arrived on a gray day, the sky as sallow as their skin, and Lenna forced herself to smile and take Perwyn Frey's arm in the yard, walking with him into the Merman's Court. He was solicitous to her father, soft-spoken and considerate with the girls, and Lenna couldn't help but judge him decent. As decent as Freys could be, that was.

She was not permitted into the negotiations, of course. In fact, she could hardly bring herself to care about them at all. They meant nothing, she knew they meant nothing, but there was the matter of schooling her nieces in how to behave, what to say. Wynna she wasn't worried about, but Wylla was another case entirely.

Wyman called all three of them into his study. Lenna knew what he was going to say as soon as she took stock of his hangdog expression and stooped shoulders. She took her customary seat at the little desk by the window while she waited, her father not in a mood to talk. He was sitting with his elbows braced on the arms of his chair, fingers steepled in front of his mouth and his brows drawn up together like fat, white caterpillars.

Wynna entered next in her quiet manner, and Wylla was on her heels, hands already balled at her sides and flames in her eyes.

"Is it done?" she spat, her tone flinty.

"It is," Wyman replied. "The contracts have not been signed, but they will be once our maester and Walder Frey's have looked them over. It will be some weeks until it is official, but there will be a feast tonight."

"So we've been sold," Wylla said, standing up haughtily as she tossed the long tail of green hair down her back.

Wyman closed his eyes as if in pain, then looked to Lenna.

"Don't be so dramatic, dear," she said quietly. "We haven't been sold. What else would you have grandfather do?"

"I won't go to a feast," Wylla said impudently. "I will not sup with him."

Lenna couldn't blame her. Little Walder Frey was the most repugnant of the three by far. A pimply faced boy who breathed through his mouth, a little thread of spittle often trailing from his lip, Wylla was well within her rights to be repulsed.

"You must control your temper," Wynna said lowly. Lenna was surprised to hear her voice shaking. Her niece had gone white, down to her lips, and she had her arms wrapped about herself as she looked out of the window and toward the sea. She was not looking at her sister or her aunt, her gaze instead fixed on some unknown point on the horizon. Lenna shuddered to realize what it was about her aspect that seemed so strange and familiar. She looked like herself.

Her niece's words stirred something, and Lenna sat back in her chair. Her palm found its way absently to the growing round of her belly. She was small still, but she knew what was causing that plumpness in her middle, and she often discovered herself running her fingers over it, though whether she was unconsciously soothing the child or herself she wasn't sure.

"No," she said quietly, the idea still half formed, like fog in autumn when it crept from both the harbor and the moors. "Don't."

"What?" Wylla asked, shock in her voice. Lenna was well aware that half of Wylla's peevishness came from some inborn desire to shock them all. Thus the stubborn set of her chin, the insistence on dying her hair that virulent shade of green. The youngest of the three, Lenna realized that Wylla must feel much left behind by herself and her sister. Wynna had been born a lady, garnering praise for her sweet ways and prudence, and none of them could compete with Lenna herself, at least in the menfolk's estimation. This was exacerbated by Lenna's prolonged absence, the guilt they all undoubtedly felt at her being stolen from them and the lot of them unable to do anything about it.

Wynna had coped by becoming a version of her aunt, and Lenna was bitterly aware of this. She was still herself, aye, but Lenna wondered if she would have been half so somber or a sight more cheerful if Lenna had never been called to the capital. She had quietly stepped into a woman's role far before her time, and it had both pigeon-holed and liberated her younger sister.

Where Wynna was soft-spoken, practical, and ladylike, Wylla had instead run a bit wild. She did as was expected of her, of course, she knew her duties and respected them like a Manderly should, but it was done on her terms. She was the beloved prodigal, the oddman, the one whose whims were consistently and lovingly indulged. She had a reputation for a sharp tongue, a saucy attitude and a complete dismissal of other people's opinions. Lenna couldn't imagine refusing her father's orders, but Wylla was born recalcitrant and contrary and perfect. She was, in a word, a minx. Lenna admired her for it.

"Come to the feast," Lenna said at last. "But don't try and pretend to be happy about it. You aren't happy."

"None of us are happy," Wynna broke in.

"No," Lenna replied slowly, looking to her father, "but if we were to all act pleased, it wouldn't look right. Wendel was King Robb's Master of Ships and Coin, father his bannerman. This is something of a humiliation, and they know it. They think me to support their cause. I will act my part, just as I always have. Your father is held captive by the Lannisters, and these Boltons and Freys are their allies. Wynna, you are the eldest, a lady-"

"Thank you very much," Wylla muttered.

"A lady," Lenna continued with pursing of her lips, "and known to be well-bred. But everyone knows that Wylla is her own person. So, let her be herself. She will do us a favor in it."

"I don't see how this will benefit us," Wyman said. "They expect me to bend the knee to the Iron Throne."

"Of course," Lenna replied. "And you will. I will send a jubilant letter to Cersei, informing her that, at last, White Harbor has come around and we are in full alliance with the crown, that I am to finally be married, so long as I have her blessing. She will think I am recovered, that White Harbor is again in her sights."

"Why?"

"Because she wants to," Lenna replied simply. "And it is the only course of action that makes any sense. And we will bend the knee. At least, we will make it appear that we have done so. Our hearts don't have to be in it."

"We'll be liars," Wylla spat.

"Live ones," Lenna replied. "But if it was me and I knew that Lord Manderly's youngest granddaughter had a mind of her own, it would make me wonder if the lady was thrilled with the prospect of her marriage to Little Walder. That wouldn't make sense. So, I think Wylla should say whatever she wants."

"Within reason," Wyman said.

"Don't think of it as lying," Lenna said. "You needn't lie. None of us will, not really. Father will not go to King's Landing and bend the knee in person, but he will seem to be supporting the Boltons and the Freys, the Lannisters. We know that he is not."

"How can he seem to without actually aiding them?" Wylla demanded.

"For now," Lenna said, "all he must do is continue to say yes to whatever they say. He can hem and haw all he likes, but ultimately, he will agree to their terms."

Wyman nodded.

"And we will continue to act our parts," Lenna said, crossing to her father's desk and taking a plum from the bowl there. "And the better we act them, the sooner they will leave."

The feast was as grand an affair as could be thrown together at the last moment. The ale flowed freely, there were bountiful platters of shellfish, roast potatoes, and good brown bread with yellow butter. There was music and laughter and the carefully constructed semblance of peace, of reconciliation between House Manderly and House Frey.

The women sat with their intendeds, Wynna wooing Ramsay Bolton with her soft fingertips on his wrist and large blue eyes, Wylla sitting rigid beside Little Walder, her back straight as a rail and refusing to look at him.

"I've thought of this since the day we met," Perwyn Frey said, speaking from the side of his mouth as he watched the crowded hall. "The night we danced at the Red Keep, I knew this day would come."

Lenna's mouth quirked up in the way she knew made a dimple appear in her cheek. "You have a gift then, Ser," she said in reply. "What many of us would give to see the future as you have."

He laughed and his eyes shone, and Lenna felt almost sorry for him. Almost.

The party stayed the remainder of the week, and it was on the fourth day that they were all startled by the doors to the Merman's Court being flung open, the guards dragging in a man by the elbows.

Seated by her father with a quill in hand, Lenna looked up from the notes she was scribing to see what the fuss was about. Her father liked her presence when he heard arbitration, and she remembered how her mother used to sit beside him when she was a child. So, she listened and took notes while Maester Loren wrote minutes, the two of them seated together at a long desk to the side of the dais. Loren saw the man and jabbed his quill into his parchment so harshly that the ink spewed across it like skittering spiders.

The guards were being none too gentle with their man, though he was doing his best to keep up with them. He was dressed in rough wool, a tunic and trousers, a dark brown cape with a simple clasp. He could have been any seaman in those clothes, even a prosperous one. His hands were gloved, and she immediately noticed that the fingers of his right hand were shorter than they should have been.

A smuggler.

Not just any smuggler. When the guards came to a halt, roughly pushing their prisoner forward, Lenna felt a flicker of recognition.

The man did not fall, though no doubt the guards meant for him to fall to his knees on the floorboards, but he kept himself upright. He scowled as he righted his cloak, shook back his shoulders. Wyman Manderly had already been standing, listening to petitions as he paced back and forth before his throne, the girls behind him. Wynna was sewing, Wylla looking out the window with a book forgotten in her lap. They both looked up at the racket, faces carefully blank. Wyman was staring hard at the man before him, and Lenna noted immediately that the interloper looked right back.

"Who is this?" Wyman demanded, looking to the captain of his guard.

"Ser Davos Seaworth," Lenna replied, butting the man off as he opened his mouth to speak. She had stood without realizing it, leaning over the table slightly.

"My lady," the man rasped. "I had not thought to see you here. You are a most welcome sight."

"Ser Davos is a knight in service to Stannis Baratheon," Lenna told her father, hoping he could see the caution in her glance. "At least, he was when last we met."

"A tourney," Davos said, looking to Lenna as if she could cast him a rope.

"Yes," she agreed with a slight smile, conscientiously not looking at Perwyn Frey. He and his kinsmen were standing to the side. Wyman didn't like them being there, felt they were spying. He was right, and Lenna felt a trembling in her muscles at the situation in which they now found themselves.

"Why have you come here, Ser Davos?" Wyman asked, stepping forward.

The man seemed to loosen under their eyes. His face went slack with relief, but instead of making him appear more at ease, it only made him seemed more tired.

"I have been sent to treat with you on behalf of my king," Davos said. He reached into his cloak and one of the guards took a step forward. Wyman raised his hand. Davos withdrew a letter, and when Manderly nodded, he brought it forward and offered it to him.

Wyman cleared his throat as he slid his finger beneath the seal. Lenna watched as his eyes darted across the words, then he quickly folded it up and handed it to her. She took it carefully, reading through it briefly.

It was nothing surprising. Renewed claims about Joffrey's illegitimacy, an entreaty to pledge service to Stannis' claims and fight against House Lannister.

"I fear, Ser Davos," Wyman said, his hands behind his back, "that I cannot help your lord in his endeavor."

"We could help you-"

"Help with what?" Lenna asked. Her father's brow shot up at her, but he did nothing more than purse his lips. "As you can see, Ser Davos, White Harbor continues to prosper. We have no cause to enter into this war and stand against our allies."

"Your allies," Davos boomed. "Freys and Boltons who have turned hide on their kinsfolk-"

"Freys and Boltons who have ever been our friends," Lenna replied with a smirk, "and who will be our husbands before long."

"Husbands?"

"A triple marriage, Ser Davos," she replied. "I am to wed Ser Perwyn Frey, my nieces Ramsay Bolton and Little Walder Frey. A very happy arrangement, I assure you."

Davos looked at her steadily, and she was sure that he saw through the ruse. His face shuttered momentarily, the woebegone brown eyes flickering with understanding.

"And what does Stannis offer us? Can it compare?" Wyman asked. "Does he have a trio of fine lordlings to offer my girls?"

"What does Stannis offer you? Vengeance. Vengeance for my sons and yours, for your husbands and your fathers and your brothers. Vengeance for your murdered lord, your murdered king, your butchered princes. Vengeance."

"Yes. They killed Lord Eddard and Lady Catelyn and King Robb." Even Lenna's head turned at the thin voice that threaded through the Merman's Court with the precision of a needle. "He was our King. He was brave and good and the Frey's murdered him. If Lord Stannis will avenge him, we should join him."

"You forget yourself," Wyman warned, heat in his cheeks and lightning in his glance.

"Oathbreaker," she whispered, but it was loud enough to echo off the chamber walls.

"I will take your tongue from its root, my lady," her spluttered, and Lenna was worried for him. He was shaking with a rage that she could not help but believe herself, his face nearly purple and veins bulging out of his forehead.

"We made a promise," Wylla replied, and Lenna saw her as a woman grown for the first time. Her shoulders were thrown back, her hair in that long, green braid and crackling with its own energy. Her eyes were blazing, but her voice was steady. "Before the Conquest. A promise was made and oaths were sworn in the Wolf's Den before the old gods and the new. When we were sore beset and friendless, hounded from our homes and in peril of our lives, the wolves took us in and nourished us and protected us against our enemies. The city is built on the land they gave us, and in return we swore always to be their men. Stark men."

There was a murmur in the gathered crowd, one of assent. Lenna's heart expanded. She had been worried, and foolishly so, to think that the people of their city could be so defeated as to wish to bow to the Lannisters and their ilk. She had to carefully keep her pride off her face, pride in them, and pride in her niece.

"Out," Wyman said lowly. "Get her out!"

Wynna and Lenna both stood at the same time, taking her gently by the arms and pulling her out through the door in the wall, Lenna's gaze flickering to the kraken and his green tentacles and then to her niece and her green hair.

Once on the other side of the door, Lenna barred it in place. The three women made their way swiftly to Manderly's study, waiting in anxious silence for what felt like hours. At last the door opened, and Wyman Manderly took three great strides across the room, gathering Wylla in his embrace.

"Well done," he said. "Well done. It couldn't have gone better if we'd been able to plan it."

Wylla's eyes had gone wide, but she nodded. Her nerves had caught up with her after her initial courage had worn off. She was trembling now. Lenna took her hand and pressed it.

"Stay here," he said quietly. "Go about your business. Wylla, you will need to seem contrite. I am to treat with the Boltons and Freys this afternoon. Whatever you hear, I beg you to trust me."

"What are you planning-"

"I'll not tell you," he said, drawing the back of a stubby finger over Lenna's cheek. "I won't tell you now, girl. Maybe later."

Lenna felt little, but she had no other recourse but to do as he said. Wyman shooed them out before their guests arrived to speak with him, the women keeping to the private gardens in hopes of not meeting with the Freys.

Dinner that evening was rather stilted, conditions especially frosty between Wylla and the members of the envoy. Little Walder wasn't terribly put out if the pile of food he consumed was any indication.

"Your niece-" Perwyn began, his voice slinking over Lenna's shoulder.

"Is a girl," Lenna replied. "An impetuous one, at that."

"Aye," he said. "She would benefit from listening to her elders."

"Did anyone listen to their elders at that age?"

"I would think you did," he said blandly. Lenna took a sip from her goblet.

"I know the value of circumspection," she said quietly. "Listening to all sides, and making decisions based on good sense rather than feeling."

He smiled softly at her. "Feeling can't help but influence decisions, though. I would want you to know that my wishes-"

"You needn't say anything else," Lenna said. She made herself return his smiles, but more than anything, she just wanted him to stop talking.

Perwyn looked down, satisfaction written in the long lines of his face. "We will leave in the morning."

"So soon?" Lenna asked, honestly surprised. Her father had stayed locked in his study with them all afternoon.

"We have concluded our talks most satisfactorily," he replied. "We must go back and take what we've agreed upon to my father and Lord Roose."

"I wish you a speedy journey, then," Lenna said, only a little chagrined at the honesty in her words.

"The sooner we depart, the sooner we may come back again." He raised his goblet in salute and she returned the gesture, averting her eyes from the intensity of his own over the rim of the vessel.

In the morning, all of the Manderlys gathered to wish them farewell in the courtyard, each of their intendeds astride the horses her father had given them as gifts. Her stomach roiled a bit in understanding. Such a gift discharged a lord's responsibility for the protection of his guests. Lenna was feeling rather green before , but she managed to stay upright and composed even when Perwyn Frey took her hand in his and pressed it to his mouth. A tight smile seemed to satisfy him, and she was not at all upset to watch them ride away through the gates of the New Castle. They all looked up as they passed under the arch, and Lenna wondered what they were looking at, shocked and disgusted to see a head and a pair of hands above her father's gate.

Wyman Manderly was not one to execute criminals and then display their bodies. She was sure he had done the job more times than she knew, he certainly never spoke of it, but it was his duty as the Lord of White Harbor. However, they'd never been dipped in pitch and mounted on the battlements before, not like they had in King's Landing.

She couldn't help but remember the day on the ramparts, when pretty Sansa Stark had shown true steel as she was forced to look at her own father's severed head and those of people she had known. Now, she found her knees shaking as she looked up at the grisly relics, her stomach dropping to the floor when she recognized their former owner. The fingers of the right hand were all cut at the first knuckle.

"Steady, girl," her father said, slipping a hand around her waist. "I'll explain all."

Her nieces were equally troubled, fluttering their handkerchiefs as their enemies rode out of their city. Wyman kept a firm grip on his daughter, turning her once they had gone out of sight and leading the whole troupe back into the castle, to his private study.

"Has he been brought?" he asked, pausing to enquire with the guard. To Lenna's surprise, it was the red-headed captain.

"Aye, my lord," he replied, gray eyes serious. "He's waiting."

The door swung open to reveal Davos Seaworth standing at the casement, his fingers playing in the graying beard. His face was drawn with care, his aspect that of some sad dog, all sagging skin and hollowed eyes.

"But-" Lenna spluttered.

"The deal has been struck, Ser," Wyman said, sitting behind his desk. "I cannot give you what you ask for, not at this moment. But you will leave White Harbor in safety, and I pray that you tell your lord that you were treated with kindness by the Manderlys in the North."

"They are gone?" Davos said.

"They are," Wyman responded. "And they will not be returning here again."

"What do you mean," Lenna asked, taking a step into the room. Her father gestured for her to sit. She was grateful once she had sat down. The lightheadedness was making her heart flutter.

"It is an ugly thing to tell my women," her father continued. "But that group of men will not have an easy time on the road, I fear."

"Papa-" Lenna objected.

"Would you have me risk being unable to get you out of these betrothals? Men go missing on the road all the time," her father continued. "You know all about that yourself, don't you, daughter?"

Lenna colored. She had never confided in her father about the Boltons on the road, only Wendel. Her brother had the grace to look apologetic.

"I had to tell him," Wendel said. "I had to, Lenna."

She took a deep breath. "The man, the head and hands mounted on the battlements-"

"Another convict, slated for execution. His time came last night, I'm afraid."

"But why-"

"The Lannisters knew that Ser Davos here was en route to us. I was sent a letter demanding that he be delivered to them."

"And I thank you for not doing just that," Davos said, his hands still clasped behind him. "I do not understand your reasoning, my lord-"

"We are in a precarious position, Ser," Wyman said. "We have Freys and Boltons nipping at our ankles here, the Lannisters behind them. I cannot support them, but I must seem to."

"You do not support them?" Davos' face seemed to crumple in on itself, a wad of old parchment.

"Of course not," Wyman blustered. "We are Northerners, Ser. We will support the Northern cause, and our memory is long."

"There is no Northern cause," Davos said.

"We'll see," Wyman replied with faint and enigmatic smile. It grew until he was beaming at the three women. "Have you ever seen anything as magnificent as these women? Wylla. Did you see how brave she was? Even when I threatened to have her tongue out, she stood her ground, reminded me of the debt of White Harbor to the Starks in Winterfell. Not that I had forgotten, mind. Wylla spoke from the heart. Not every woman can be as brave as our Wylla. And Wynna, so composed even in the face of Ramsay Bolton."

"He's mad, grandpapa," she said quietly. "He was saying the most alarming things."

"And she kept her head, you'd never have known anything was wrong. Did you find out what I wanted to know?"

"Aye," she replied. "He was more than happy to tell me." Lenna looked at her niece in surprise. Wynna colored, a splash of pink across her nose. "I know where he is."

"Where who is?"

"Theon Greyjoy," her father replied. "And Winterfell?"

"Secured by the Boltons."

Her father nodded, chewing on his cheek. "And we cannot forget dear Lenna. She is angry with me, I wager." Lenna did not contradict him. "Thinks I should have told her all of this, and perhaps I should have. But she-"

"She has done enough," Davos said.

"It will never be enough," Lenna replied, unsure whether the clinching in her lungs was from despair or determination.

"For now," her father replied, "it is. I do believe we are in the eye again. At least for a time. Just for a time."

Lenna felt deflated, weary and tired. Wynna and Wylla withdrew at Wyman's suggestion, leaving Lenna and Wendel to stay and listen. The interview with Ser Davos continued, and she listened, half-attending, as they spoke of ships and battle-plans. The Onion Knight was far more open and candid than she would have perhaps expected, concealing nothing from her father.

Ser Davos sailed that day with the tide. He was to be smuggled back down to the harbor through the Wolf's Den before he was packed onto his ship and sent back to his king. When the time came for him to go, he approached Lenna slowly and took her hand.

"I wish you joy, my lady," he said somberly. "I am glad to have seen you again, and hope that we shall meet again."

"Under happier circumstances," she said quietly. He nodded, bowing quickly over her hand.

Lenna walked the ramparts for a time. She was feeling quite wan and gray, but from time to time, she'd feel the fluttering in her belly and it would ease her care for a while.

"Papa is coming home." Wynna appeared behind her, slipping silently across the stones on her soft slippers.

"How?" Lenna asked, turning and pulling her shawl more tightly around her shoulders.

"It was part of the bargain for Ser Davos," her niece replied, eyes shining in her strained face. "Tywin offered to free him if we dealt with Seaworth."

"That is wonderful news," Lenna said genuinely, reaching for her niece's hand. The girl squeezed her fingers, but still she hung back rather than seeking an embrace.

"Are you angry with me?" she asked quietly.

"No," Lenna answered truthfully. "I wish I had known. I do not like you two being involved in these matters."

"We can help-"

"You don't know what you're dealing in," Lenna said, biting her tongue. "You think you do, but you truly, truly don't."

"Then teach me," Wynna pleaded. "Let me help."

"Absolutely not," Lenna replied, but there was no bite in it. "I cannot do this, Wynna. I cannot bring you into it. Not for anything in the world."

"Your husband's return?"

"Not even for that," she said, her stomach sickening. "Nothing we do here will speed him back. He is on the king's business. He will take care of himself."

"He should be here with you."

"We do not belong to ourselves," Lenna replied. "But you still do, for now at least. Please, do not ask me again to strip you of that. I cannot do it."

Her cheeks were cold, she realized, chilled by the tears that had made their way out her eyes without her noticing. Wynna, almost as tall as her, wrapped her arms around Lenna's back and Lenna rested her forehead on her niece's shoulder. The wind was whipping around them, the cold sharp as a little paring knife, a rapier blade of winter chill sighing over the ramparts, the last breath of summer.

Sandor LIII

He was growing tired of the fucking litany every night as the fire died. Petulant that he'd refused to take her straight to the nearest port, the child had soured again. Funny, he kind of regretted it. He saw something of himself in the girl, pitiful as that was, and the anger in her spoke to him. She was a fighter, just as he was, but she had not yet learned how to control herself.

"...Joffrey...Cersei...Walder Frey...Meryn Trant...Tywin Lannister...The Red Woman...Beric Dondarrion…" she said. She didn't bother to whisper, her little voice rising over the hum of the crickets and frogs. "Thoros of Myr...Ilyn Payne..The Mountain…"

"Are you going to kill every fucking person in Westeros, little wolf? Who will be left when you're done, I wonder? Hate is as good a thing as any to keep a person going," he replied, his eyes still shut. _Hate_. Strange how its opposite could hone that rage, make it sharper and more dangerous. He felt it bubbling up twice as hot every time he thought of Lenna, remembered why he was a thousand miles away in this fucking backwater with this surly child and not with her, where he belonged. "Better than most. You're not the only one with a list, only if you were smart, you wouldn't share it."

"Who's on yours?"

It was the first time in a few weeks that Arya's voice had lost its poison when she spoke to him.

"We'll just say that if we happen to come across my brother, maybe we can both cross him off our lists."

"If he were here right now, what would you do?" The child had rolled up onto her elbow, large eyes glinting in the darkness, but the night too thick to see their color.

Sandor took a breath. "I'd kill him. Same as you."

"Your own kin?" she prodded.

"Blood doesn't make kin. He's no brother to me," he said. "Go to sleep."

"I can't sleep until I say them all."

He sighed. "Go on. Get it over with then. Your fucking list of doomed men."

"There's only one name left," she taunted. He knew what was coming next. "The Hound."

He humphed, shutting his eyes again, but it was almost as if he could feel the child thinking, his own buzzing thoughts joining in the whirr of the night until he drifted off, the girl's soft snuffling assuring him he wouldn't die that night. No, he was still too useful, and though his sleep would be troubled, it would not be because of Arya Stark.

He woke abruptly in the gray light before dawn. The fire was cold and the grass was wet with dew. He nearly slipped as he scrambled to his feet, the girl gone. She had a frustrating tendency to wander off, but he knew what she was doing.

It took him a quarter hour to find her, but when he did, she was engaged exactly as he expected, little feet skipping and sliding over the ground, the thin blade cutting through the air neatly, elegantly, the way a lady's hands might in a dance.

They had left five men dead at that inn over a week before. They'd killed the lot of them, Lannisters drifting too far afield, and they'd taken their prizes. Her little blade, thin and keen, and his sack full of chickens. They'd just finished polishing them off, though they'd stopped tasting good after a few days. Still, it had been nice to have a full stomach for once.

His shock at her viciousness had worn off, and he'd been half-impressed by her talent, green as it was. More than half. She was about the age he'd been when he'd found his calling, perhaps eleven. He'd never asked, and he didn't know for sure, but she had the same thirst he'd had, just not the same developed judgment. The practice.

His annoyance in the aftermath of the Twins when he'd unexpectedly had to kill that group of Frey bannermen had been real battle lust when he found himself facing a better equipped band of Lannister fighting men. He'd known how it would end as soon that one fool cunt had recognized him and been stupid enough to say so. There was no way he could leave that place without slaughtering the witnesses, but he'd found her a far better fighter than he had expected, especially after the hack-job she'd done of her first Frey.

They'd gone into the inn on some business about a sword, that thin blade she was now drawing through the air, one hand behind her back. Needle, she called it. He'd laughed. Naming swords had always seemed damn idiotic to him. Steel was steel and not your friend, just another tool. A sword with a name didn't work any better than one without, not in his experience. Not that he was lacking in affection for his own, it had hung on his hip for many years, but he appreciated it for what he could do with it, not for what it was. It was his skill, his ability, that transformed it from a hunk of metal into something more.

She was so engrossed in her fancy footwork that she didn't hear him coming. His lips pursed in disapproval and he made a sound of dismay. She had talent aplenty, but no skill. Not yet, at least.

"What are you doing, girl?"

She barely hesitated, but it was there, a slight stumble in the foot, the flaring of the nostrils.

"I'm practicing."

"What, ways to die?" he chortled. It was a common foible in those starting out. Her focus was too singular. He bet that if she blinked her eyes would water. If she wasn't aware of everything going on around her, she would find a sword through her kidneys in short order, and it would be her blood on the dirt and not her fancy bladework that would stun her foes.

"No one's going to kill me," she replied, and it wasn't defiance. He barked a dry laugh. The girl actually believed it.

"They will if you mince around like that," he said, hooking his finger in his sword belt and chewing on his tongue. "You didn't even hear me."

"Yes, I did," she retorted, the familiar poison in her babyish voice, but her petulance had the same note as any guilty child caught in a lie and digging their heels in deeper. "I'm ignoring you."

He snorted. _Tenacity_ , he thought absently, and it felt like a dagger in the lung.

"That's no way to fight." She had talent, maybe even enough discipline to turn it into something more than talent, but her damn frivolous-

"It's not fighting," she said, her tone whiny as a brat's. _She is one_. "It's water dancing."

He laughed at that. Fucking ridiculous notion.

"Dancing. You ought to put on a dress. Who taught you that shite?" It was a bloody waste of both their time.

She turned on her heel, levelling the sword at him. "The greatest swordsman who ever lived. The first sword to the Sea-Lord of Braavos, Syrio Forel."

Braavos. There it was again. "That the friend you wouldn't shut up about? The one you want to go see. Bet he was greasy, they all are."

"He was not."

"Was? Dead, then," he crowed. She was looking at him sullenly, her mouth twisted up like a mouse turd. He felt a faint twinge of guilt. "How?"

"He was killed."

"Who by?" he prodded.

"Meryn Trant. That's why Ser Meryn's on my list." The girl was spewing now, spit flying from her lips and flames from her eyes.

"Meryn Trant?" Disbelief and surprise squeezed it out of him. "The greatest swordsman who ever lived killed by Meryn Fucking Trant?" Trant was always too busy with drinking and diddling little girls to be found in the training yards. Sandor knew what he looked like without his damned Kingsguard armor on, too, had seen his pale, doughy flesh more than he'd ever want to in the bathhouse. His flabby belly and his limp little pecker.

"He was outnumbered." Her face was going red and she wouldn't look at him. He thought for a moment that she was crying.

"Have to be to fall to Trant," Sandor replied. "Any boy holding a sword could beat three Meryn Trants. Or just one girl, I'd think."

The girl didn't hear the compliment, too wrapped up in her own anger and sorrow. "He didn't have a sword, or armor, just a stick-"

"The greatest swordsman who ever lived didn't have a sword?" He chortled at the ridiculousness of it, of her. Mossy eyes flickering with disdain flashed in his mind unbidden, and he pushed the derision back down again. The child was clearly pained by the memory. He'd often wondered where she'd gotten to that day they'd raided the Tower of the Hand. She'd disappeared handily, most thinking her dead, her broken little body thrown into some pit she wouldn't be discovered. He'd never bought it. She was too scrappy. Too like him.

"Go on then," he said flatly. "Let's see what he taught you. Do it for your Braavosi friend."

Her movement was agile but too showy, fueled by anger and unfocused. When the little blade was thrust toward his midsection, he didn't bother to move. It wedged in his armor, and he barely felt it through the layers of his hauberk and mail. It lodged there twanging, the child unable to remove it.

With a quick tug, he took it out as easily as if it was a toothpick, holding the slender blade in his hand as he examined the hilt. It was castle-forged steel, a well-wrought little sword and wickedly sharp, not at all unlike its owner. Far too costly and too deadly to have ever been intended as a toy. He wondered how she'd come by it.

"Not shabby," he said, "the sword or the fighter, but you've got it wrong, little wolf. Your friend might have been the best swordsman in the world, all that fancy footwork, but he's dead. Like most of your friends. Why? Because Meryn Trant had armor, and a big fucking sword. And Meryn Trant didn't give a fuck about what he was doing. He was just following orders."

"He wanted to kill him-" the girl protested hotly.

"Aye," Sandor replied. "But not because he was angry. He wanted to kill him because he enjoyed it. It was his job. Just as it was my job. Just as it is my job, still."

He twirled her little needle and offered it back to her. Little fingers wrapped themselves carefully in place, but her Stark eyes looked up at him seriously.

"You've got your list, wolf-girl," he said quietly. "You've got a lot of anger in there, but what will you do when all the people you want to kill are dead, I wonder?"

It was a question he often asked himself, what he would actually do once the fighting and the killing were over. There was a good chance, one that he almost relied on, that it would never be done, that she would never be completely safe and there would always be someone else for him to hunt down and kill, just a hound on the hunt for his mistress, dragging back his quarry and laying it at her feet. Even if she didn't want him to do it, he'd do it anyway.

The irony of his questioning of this hateful child wasn't completely lost on him. He was deterring her from just the sort of thing that kept him putting one foot in front of the other. Rage had been his best friend for many years, had seen him through the vast majority of his bitter existence, but he rememberer what it was like to be happy, just as he wagered this girl did. It did nothing to quell that anger, rather it did the opposite. The memory only further enraged him, reminded him of what he'd lost. This child was no different, and far too young to know that the pain far exceeded the pleasure. For her, he imagined, it had been the other way around, and she was howling for it.

He knew better than most that you couldn't unspin time.

"You're friend is dead, little wolf," he growled. "Just don't forget that you are not. Keep it that way."

The days started to bleed together until he wasn't sure how long it had been since they'd left the Twins. A month at least, if he was guessing. That meant it had been three months, maybe closer to four, since he'd left Riverrun. By the time he got the child to the Eyrie and safe into her aunt's keeping, it would be nearly six months. Then he'd go back to Riverrun, and maybe even turn North thereafter- gods, it would be a year before he made it to White Harbor. A whole bloody year.

"It's going to rain soon."

They'd stopped to piss and water the horse, and he looked up at the sky with annoyance, his dark thoughts becoming even darker at the girl's insistence that he was as stupid as he was ugly. Of course it was going to fucking rain. He'd been watching the clouds all day, scuttling and blending and the color of slate.

"Where are we?"

He sighed, almost a huff, returning to where Stranger was drinking from the stream at his leisure. Worse to worst, they could hunker down here for the storm. They'd stopped at a bridge, clambering down the streambank. He knelt down to start refilling the water skins.

"Near Fairmarket, I think," he said after a while, squinting at where the sun was hiding behind the clouds, only able to tell its position because the sky was a little lighter in that spot.

"You think? You don't have a map?"

Memory hit him like a stone in the sternum, Lenna's voice asking so similar a question, and when the pain subsided, he grimaced.

"No, I don't have a map." Lenna's reaction had once made him grin, the same disbelief that he could find their way without a damn piece of parchment with pictures drawn on it by some man who'd never been where they were standing. She'd always been too reliant on words in books, not understanding the limits of that kind of knowledge. Her Myrish poetry had done them an immense amount of good in the wilds.

"Don't you think we should get one?" the child prodded, eyebrow cocked haughtily.

He barked dryly. "Aye. Next map shop you see, point it out and I'll buy you one."

"How far is it to the Eyrie?"

"Far," he said shortly, wiping the water from his hands, his patience thinning. She would have peppered him with questions from daybreak to sunset if he let her. Every last one made his frustration rise until he wanted to kick something.

"And you're sure we're going the right way?"

"Believe me, girl," he replied with a grinding of teeth. "I want you there as soon as I can. Be on my way."

"White Harbor?"

He let out a long breath through his nose. He hated how smart she was. Arya Stark was nothing at all like her dainty elder sister. The child saw through bullshit and found the weaknesses in his armor more quickly than any he'd met before. Or, at least, she prodded him more than anyone he'd known before, even Lenna. She was always gently teasing, but Arya Stark wanted a good spar. It was both refreshing and infuriating that she wasn't afraid of him. Sansa Stark had been terrified of him, and he preferred it that way. This one pushed and prodded, and he found he barely had any bark for her, let alone bite.

Especially when she brought up Lenna, which was more than he liked.

"No," he replied shortly, pushing the notion away. It had tempted him far too often. Sometimes he was just a breath, a contraction of muscle away from turning the horses north and damning the Starks and their cause.

"I thought-"

"There is more work to be done," he said, wiping his hands. "I'll do as I've been bid, then I'll return to your brother at Riverrun. See what is needed from there."

The child had fallen silent, and when he glanced at her, she looked almost as desolate as he felt. Her brow was dark, two little dashes carved into her forehead, and she had opened her mouth as if to speak.

"Seven blessings."

They both looked up. A man and a child were looking down on them from the seat of their cart, laden with hay. The man's face was wary.

"What do you want?" Sandor asked quickly.

"You're on my land," the man replied succinctly.

"I'm standing-"

"We were just watering the horses. We'll be on our way," Arya said quickly, her tone unusually placating. The man seemed satisfied, and Sandor successfully repressed the urge to say something biting. Instead, he moved to untangle Stranger's bridle from the branch that had served as his hitching post.

"Forgive my father." He paused, slowly looking at the child. She had adapted a humble stance, and he saw it for the farce it was. "He was wounded in the war. Our cottage burned down while he was away, and my mother with it."

 _What in the seven hells-_

"He's never been the same."

Sandor looked at the man askance, trying to keep his agitation off his face.

"What house did he fight for?" the man asked, directing the question to Arya rather than Sandor. Arya looked at him for a long moment. It could be a costly answer and he would let her know how stupid she had been. Later.

"The Tullys of Riverrun," she answered. The man's face lightened and he cleared his throat.

"There's a storm coming," the man said, his voice now kindly. "You'll be wanting a roof tonight. There's fresh hay in the barn. And Sally here makes rabbit stew just like her mum used to do." He turned his attention to Sandor. "We don't have much, but any man who has bled for House Tully is welcome to it."

Sandor's gave a piteous rumble at the idea of stew, and Arya's gray eyes were looking at him imploringly. She was as much a hound as he was at time, her face long and pleading as a pup's. He nodded, and she smiled. A real, genuine smile. His lip twitched to return it against his will.

The man's croft was humble, just the one room. They entered through a low door, the man lifting the leather coverings at the windows to let light filter into the shadowed place like dirty dishwater. There was a rough table with two benches near the hearth, a straw-filled mattress against one whitewashed wall. Save for the barrels of apples and onions, it was otherwise bare but clean.

"My wife died a little over a year ago," the man said. "We aren't much by way of housekeepers. Sally does her best, though." He reached out and laid his hand on the child's head and Sandor felt badly for him.

"Sorry to hear that," Arya said, his feeling in her words. "My mother died, too."

The mask she had been wearing, that of his daughter, slipped a little. The girl hadn't permitted herself to cry since the night of the massacre. He wondered how she held all of it in, that grief and anger. His mother had died when he was a lad, he thought he was eight or nine, and he'd cried for days, alone in his room and out in fields chasing after the dogs. They'd licked the salt off his face, and it was the only comfort he'd been offered, comfort he had wanted. When he reached for his father, he'd been turned away, and then the grief had turned to more anger, layered on top of the rage over…

He pressed his lips together and looked uncomfortably at the farmer. He never knew what to say.

"Please, sit," the man said, gesturing to the benches. They were sturdy enough to hold even him. "Sally will just heat up our supper."

Water was brought, and Arya sat next to him, quiet as a woodland creature, thinking very hard by the pleating on her brow.

Stew was brought and placed before them in large crocks. Sandor was never one for manners, and it took much of his remaining control not to gulp the hot stew down in one bolt. Instead, he waited until it was proper, the heat of the bowl warming his hands. He hadn't even noticed they were cold, but the welcome heat made him realize that winter was indeed on the wing.

"Did you fight at the Twins?" the man asked, startling him enough to draw his attention.

"Not much of a fight, more like a slaughter," he replied darkly, putting his bowl down and cutting a remorseful look in the child's direction. Her eyes were on her stew.

"The Red Wedding, they're calling it," the man said. In past days, Sandor might have humphed at such a name. But he couldn't think of a better way to describe what had happened. It was a wedding, and it had run red with blood.

"Walder Frey committed sacrilege that day," the man continued frostily. "He shared bread and salt with the Starks. He offered them guest right."

"Guest right don't mean much these days," Sandor growled.

"It means something to me," the farmer said sternly, looking around as if to remind Sandor that he was enjoying it at that moment. "The gods will have their vengeance. Frey will burn in the seventh hell for what he did. Things were different when Hoster Tully ruled the Riverlands. We had good years and bad years, same as anyone, but we were safe. Now the Freys raiders come plundering, steal our food, steal our silver. I was going to send Sally north to stay with my brother, but the north is no better. Greyjoys and then Boltons in Winterfell, and now Manderly-"

"What of Manderly?"

Something both hot rose from his gut and collided with cold dread rushing down from his throat. The impact was enough to make him glad he was sitting, praying that his face wasn't showing the violence in his chest at hearing that name.

"He's allied himself with the Freys and Boltons," the farmer spat. "Heard about it at the market yesterday. Sold his daughter and his nieces in marriage."

"His daughter?" Sandor said quietly, dread like a snake slithering through his gut and slowly squeezing.

"Aye," he replied. "Sure she had something to do with Manderly turning his back on his lord, too. Spent too long in the south, she did. The one that was kidnapped during the Blackwater, ransomed north, but still in the Lannisters' pockets, I'd wager."

"No," Sandor said without thinking. The man looked at him sharply. "I mean to say, why would Manderly listen to his daughter?"

"Lots in it for him," the man replied. "His daughter married to Frey's son, one of his nieces, too. And then the other, she'll be Lady of Winterfell, now."

Arya's eyes were burning a hole in the table, her knuckles white on crock of stew.

"How?" she asked, her tone light but her eyes murderous.

"To be married to Ramsay Bolton. Lord Roose's son."

"Lord Roose doesn't have a son," Arya said, and the clipped tones of a high-born made an appearance that made his hackles rise.

"His bastard," the farmer said, clearing his throat as if the word made him uncomfortable. "Legitimized him. Made him his heir and gave him Winterfell after he won it back from the Greyjoys."

"The Greyjoys had Winterfell?" Arya asked, her fingertips pressed into her bowl so tightly they'd turned white. Sandor wondered how much the girl had missed, and he kicked himself for not trying to find out sooner.

"Enough," Sandor growled, and Arya slammed her mouth shut, looking away with trouble in her eyes.

"You look like you could really swing that sword," the man continued, looking between them hesitantly. "A real warrior, with proper training. Those raiders wouldn't stand a chance against you. Freys or the others."

"Others?" Arya asked. Sandor nearly rolled his eyes. It was her damn ruse that had landed them at this man's table, and she was going to out them. Too many fucking questions. "What others?"

"The Mountain and his men," the farmer replied. "They haven't let up, just joined forces with the Freys. Been a few weeks since they've been seen around here, but-"

"How long?" Sandor demanded, peeved that he was grateful to the girl for her persistent interrogations.

"A few weeks," the man repeated. "Not a month, I don't think." He took a bit of his stew, looking thoughtful. "How about if you stayed until the new moon. I could use a man to help with-"

"We'll be leaving at first light," Sandor said, putting his bowl down. The man nodded, with faint disappointment.

"Very well," the man replied. "It was just a thought."

Conversation was rather stilted after that, the man leading them into his barn and showing them where they could bed down. Sandor was curt and snarling by the time the man left with the lantern, unable to enjoy the hay as he lay and looked up into the darkness of the barn.

"She won't do it."

"Hm?" he grunted. He heard the girl turn in her pile of hay. He knew exactly what she was talking about, he'd been thinking about it all night, but he sure as hell didn't want to discuss it with her. It was bad enough she could read him well enough to know what he was bothering him.

"If Lady Helenna did what you said, if she married you," Arya said. "She won't do it."

He felt an unwelcome surge of affection for the child, and he turned his head. If he could see her eyes glittering in the dark, he was sure that she saw his.

"I know, little wolf," he replied. "She won't do it. She's got something else planned."

"What do you mean?" she asked quietly.

"Lenna is smart," he said, staring once again into the dark above him. "She'll find a way out of it. She has before."

"The Mountain?" she asked, and he heard a note of eagerness in the question, like a child asking for a bedtime story.

He grunted. "Aye. It didn't work out how we'd planned, but it worked out all the same. Just as this will."

"And if it doesn't?"

He closed his eyes. "Remember, little wolf. You aren't the only one with a list."

A/N: hope everyone had a good week. Onwards we go.


	54. Chapter 54

Lenna LIV

Alarm made her sit straight up in her bed, her pulse accelerating so quickly she felt drunk, the room spinning, flailing like seaweed in storm. At first, she thought it was only a dream, that she had imagined that thunderous knock on her door. She was breathing hard, hand immediately on her abdomen, shifting back against her headboard as she tried to still her heart, still careening in her chest.

She inhaled through her nose, pursing her lips as the air left her lungs in a long stream. Her heartbeat slowed, still thumping violently against her breastbone, but the room itself had thankfully gone still. Then, the clatter sounded again, this time bringing her to her feet, the hair on the back of her neck and arms raised in panic.

"My lady." It was Maester Loren's soft voice at her door. Her vision pulsated with her heart, the darkened room coming into focus between flashes of white and red. She tried to reassure herself that there was no danger, that she was in her own room in the New Castle, but the air in the room seemed to crackle with disquiet.

"My lady, you must come. Quickly." The urgency in his voice propelled her across the flagstones without further thought, only a high choking in her throat as fingers groped for the iron ring to open the door.

Her first thought was of her father, that something had happened and he was ill. The second was that there had been news, perhaps from Sandor. Whatever it was, Maester Loren's voice was not joyful, and she shivered, the floor cold beneath her bare feet as she wrapped her shawl around her shoulders, plucked from the chair as she fled from her room. The Maester was in the hallway, in his nightshirt and a cloak, hair mussed with a lamp in his hand.

"My father-" she said, noting the tremble in her own voice.

"Perfectly well, my lady," he replied and she felt the briefest flash of relief. "Waiting, and it cannot be delayed, I'm afraid."

She didn't remember the journey from her rooms to her father's study, the maester trailing behind her with the lamp to light her way. She pushed the heavy door open with both hands, bursting into the familiar room. Her father was seated behind his desk looking haggard, and as her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she became keenly aware of two figures in the shadow. One small, hood up and facing the window, the other standing at the hearth, impossibly tall. Her heart gave a painful, hopeful leap.

"Lenna," the cloaked figure said, whirling around at the sound of the door. Lenna herself still wasn't sure who it was until the figure had wrapped its arms around her, and the cloak fell back to reveal hair that flamed in the flickering firelight.

"Sansa?" she whispered, still disbelieving. The tall figure unfolded itself from the mantle, Brienne of Tarth's unwavering blue gaze discernible even in the low light of the dying fire. "Lady Brienne?"

Wyman looked between the Maid of Tarth and his daughter, his face guarded and dark with misgiving.

"Lenna?" Sansa said, pulling away from the impulsive embrace and looking down at her with an expression akin to horror. Lenna noted immediately that her eyes were on the very obvious thickening at her middle. The midwife said she was between five and six months along now. Even sheltered Sansa would have no doubt as to its cause. She was an older sister, had seen her own mother growing with her younger siblings, and the look on her face told Lenna that she suspected she knew exactly who had put the child there, and it repulsed her. Lenna placed her hand on top of the rounding protectively, ruefully, the action pulling the fabric of her nightdress taut against her, making it even more pronounced.

"Did he-" the girl began, then seemed to bite her tongue, pale throat working. To her surprise, Lenna saw guilt in the sweet lines of the girl's face, guilt and hate. "I'm so sorry, Lenna."

Lenna looked at both her father and Brienne with wry amusement. Their respective looks of discomfort made her chortle with humor at complete odds with the situation.

"Don't be," she replied, turning back to her young friend. She laid a hand on Sansa's pale cheek, turning the pinched but lovely face to her own. "I certainly am not."

"What-"

"It is a story for another time," Lenna said softly, knowing that Sansa would not be put off for long. She caught her young friend's hands in both of hers. They were shaking and cold, and the girl's lip was trembling, too. "Sansa, I never thought I'd see you again."

Sansa looked at the floor, her mouth working, then a tear trickled down her cheek, though whether she was pained or happy, Lenna could not tell.

"I never thought-" she began, then she looked up at Lenna earnestly. "I am so happy that you are safe. We all thought- I thought- I saw-"

"I know," Lenna said. "I promise you that we will talk. But for now, we need to know why you are here."

"She's kept us waiting," Wyman said, huffing like a frustrated horse, all warm bluster. "Insisted she couldn't talk before she saw you."

"It's not that," Sansa said defensively. Lenna was well aware that she'd always hated feeling like people were angry with her. She hesitated but a moment, dipping her hand into her cloak. Slim fingers retrieved an envelope, handing it to Lenna. "I was bid not say anything until I had delivered this to you."

Lenna took it from her without reaction, flipping it over to see the seal. Another Tyrell rose.

 _Ah_ , she thought, the secrets in Olenna Tyrell's earlier letter beginning to unravel like a sleeve caught on a thorn.

Brienne of Tarth had taken a few steps forward, her own brow furrowed, mouth pulling down dourly. She had evidently not been aware that her young charge was carrying such. Lenna was surprised at that. But, then again, she was surprised that either of them was in White Harbor at all. She eyed Brienne for a moment, the larger woman's face betraying nothing but her customary melancholy befuddlement.

There were so many questions Lenna wanted to ask.

"Lady Olenna," Sansa choked, wrapping her arms around her middle. "She gave it to me when I left. She arranged passage for me, sending Lady Brienne to keep me safe. We left a week ago. The King is to marry...I suppose he is married now…"

There was no time to console Sansa Stark. So, a marriage between House Lannister and House Tyrell would have already taken place, and Sansa sent away beforehand. Wyman was looking at his hands, splayed on the desk, white eyebrows like angry caterpillars on his forehead. With a heavy sigh, Lenna broke the seal and moved closed to the fire to read the spidery hand. The fine script was not an apt messenger for the tidings it conveyed.

 _My dear niece,_

 _I am entrusting the girl to your keeping, along with her overgrown nursemaid. Your father will know what to do with her when the time comes. She is in no real danger for now. Her tormentor will be dead by the time she reaches you, with little grief felt by you, her, or most of Seven Kingdoms. I'm sure I don't need to tell you this, but I prefer abundance of caution to careless mistakes: no one may know that you have her._

 _I have little time or opportunity for prevarication, girl. I think we may agree that reunification of the realm is in order, and I hope that in short order these asinine provocations will cease. We have more pressing matters to attend to than infighting amongst our own lords. Prepare._

 _Olenna_

Lenna handed the letter to her father, who took it as warily as if it were a snake. _Prepare_. Olenna Tyrell spoke in riddles so knotted that even her decade amongst the Lannisters could not help her understand the old lady's wishes.

Prepare for what? How? If Olenna was right, then Joffrey was dead and Tommen would take his place on the throne, Cersei again a regent.

Pressing matters. Lenna was sure she did not know what Olenna meant, but her intent was clear and it was Lenna's hope, too: the cessation of warfare in the North and a reestablishment of order.

"What is it?" Sansa asked, her face pinched.

"We will discuss it in the morning," Lenna replied without so much as a pause, frowning and troubled. She shook her head, finding her equilibrium again, relieved when her father took the letter from her hand. It had weighed upon her without her even realizing it, and its removal was a tangible lightening. She turned to Sansa with a breath. "Now, you must be exhausted, my dear. Let's have rooms prepared for you both."

"Lenna-" Sansa said, unwilling to be turned away.

"It will wait until tomorrow," she said tiredly. Sometimes, like this moment, she felt so weary she could sleep standing. "Please, Sansa. Rest." She didn't know who she was pleading for more, herself or the girl.

Sansa gave her a watery smile, and threw her arms around her neck again, pulling Lenna close. The chilly foreboding in her gut warmed a bit as she allowed herself to tighten her own embrace, the girl relaxing against her slightly in such a way that even Lenna could feel her relief. Sansa was thin as ever, but she was there and well, two things Lenna had never allowed herself to even hope for after the Blackwater.

"I am so glad," Sansa murmured, just loud enough for the two of them to hear it. Lenna ran her hand over the girl's head and kissed her cheek.

"Aye," she replied. "Me too."

Lenna saw them both quartered herself, resisting Brienne of Tarth's protests at being housed in the family wing once Sansa had been left sleepy and safe in her room. Lenna had ordered them both installed on the same hall, close to her own rooms. It was in a secluded part of the Keep, away from her father's modest court. She had been steadily decreasing the amount of time she spent visible to their people, knowing that eventually her absence would be explained by a long illness. Keeping Sansa and Brienne out of sight would be a necessary challenge until it was decided what was to be done with them.

At Brienne's door, Lenna paused. The much taller woman hesitated at the threshold.

"I do not wish to keep you from well-deserved rest," she began, feeling uncomfortable under that piercing stare, "but I must ask. Ser Jaime-"

"He is well," Brienne replied quickly, almost as if she had expected the question, turning back to Lenna with an expression on her face that laid the warrior bare. Lenna had long suspected that Brienne of Tarth felt something for Jaime Lannister beyond the requirements of duty or honor, but the awful, tight yearning on her homely face was almost too much for Lenna to witness. Brienne cleared her throat roughly. "And Clegane?"

Lenna's hand went to her belly again. It seemed to have become her constant habit, every little moment comforting herself with the reminder of the child, a bit of him with her.

"I do not know," she replied huskily, shaking her head. How could she explain to this woman, perhaps the only who could understand, that she felt like she was losing a part of herself each day she struggled to remember what he smelled like, or the sound of his voice, or the way he looked at her from behind the curtain of his hair? She bit her lip until she tasted iron, leaving the inside of her mouth swollen but her cheeks dry.

"He is not here?" Brienne asked incredulously, brilliant eyes wide as bucklers in indignation. "You're with child, and he-"

"He does not know," Lenna replied feverishly, at once rising to his defense. "I didn't find out until after he'd gone."

Brienne's face was a field of furrows, deep and shadowed, her mouth drawn downwards.

"He would be here," she replied solemnly. When Lenna was able to meet her eye, Brienne's face conveyed the boundless and somber faith that Lenna had once felt. She envied Tarth that kind of certainty. It was a stranger to her now.

"If he knew, he would be here," Brienne assured her again, looking so stiff that Lenna was sure she was thinking of reaching out to pat her arm, hug her, even.

"Aye," Lenna said sadly, allowing herself to acknowledge the truth in it. Brienne was right. Sandor would never have left her if he had known, consequences be damned. "I believe you are right. But I have not heard from him since the week after our marriage."

Brienne's eyebrows shot up, what Lenna could see of them, so pale as to be almost invisible.

"Marriage." The word was a ghost, wispy with disbelief. It made Lenna want to laugh and cry. There were days when she thought she'd fabricated it herself. It hardly seemed real, and not in a dreamy, maidenly way, but in a mocking, biting way that made her mouth taste bitter at the memory.

"Yes, of course," Lenna said with a wry smile, distancing herself from her wallowing. "It is not so scandalous, you see." She laughed mirthlessly. "He made an honest woman of me."

She'd intended it to make Tarth crack one of her crooked smiles. Her own weak smirk died at the avidity in Brienne's eyes.

"I rather think it was you who made an honest man of him," Brienne answered, and though the words themselves were playful, the tone was not, and Lenna felt her eyes prick.

"We will talk tomorrow," she said, and the other woman nodded. "After breakfast."

But, she missed breakfast, and she was irritated that she wasn't woken sooner. The breakfast room was empty when she went in search of her family, and when she came to her father's study, only Wyman was present.

"Where are the girls? Lady Sansa?" she asked.

"Walking the strand," he replied curtly, going through his morning's correspondence.

"Is that advisable?" Lenna asked in surprise.

"That Tarth woman is with them," he said tersely, not looking up. "I reckon they're safe."

Lenna sat down in the chair opposite him, slouching to relieve the pressure on her lower back even as she wondered why her father was so crotchety.

It didn't take but a moment for him to tell her. He slid a raven born parchment across the desk to her. The first thing she noted was the black border. She scrutinized her father's face, looking for signs of grief, terrified for Wylis.

She saw nothing but her own careworn weariness reflected back at her.

"It was directed to you," he said quietly when she noted the broken seal. A lion. "But I opened it anyway. Forgive me. I feared-"

"I know what you feared," she replied, unrolling it. The message was brief, only six words, the familiar hand of Cersei Lannister seeming to tremble on the parchment, grief and pain making the normally graceful letters jagged.

 _My boy- your king- is dead._

Lenna inhaled a sharp breath, startled when her eyes pricked. There was no possibility that her father could understand the import of such a message, the almost insurmountable rage and pain in that scattering of words. But Lenna did. She knew Cersei better than anyone, and she knew without any doubts that such a letter was a howling, a roar. What Lenna couldn't have explained was why she herself should feel so desolate in the face of it.

The day they had learned that Ser Jaime was missing, Lenna had seen briefly past the cruel, hard exterior of the queen, had gotten a glimpse of her soft and raw insides when Cersei had walked into her with arms outstretched for comfort. Lenna had been uncomfortable, almost fearful, but also humbled.

As much as she knew she should be rejoicing in such news, she couldn't. She could not even muster relief.

"What now?" she whispered quickly, dashing the tears from her eyes as they spilled. Just two. Just enough, she prayed.

"There will be a new king, of course," Wyman said with a raised eyebrow. "The younger prince."

"Tommen," Lenna said, sniffing and trying to regain her control. She could not ease the strange tightening in her breast, no matter how she tried. "Tommen will be king."

"Aye," her father said tightly, watching her intently.

"He's a good lad," she said, laying the parchment down on the surface of the desk. "He will-"

"He's under her control," Wyman said. "She's to be regent until his sixteenth year, remember?"

"Cersei-" Lenna said, her brow furrowed. Her brain felt gray and muddled. "She-"

"What?" Wyman thundered. "Damn it all, Lenna, I'd almost think-"

"She leaned on me, father, as a friend," Lenna bit out, then the words came tumbling out. "I don't trust her, I don't even like her, but how sad she is, truly. How much she wants to be loved, to love, even, and now- I cannot bear to think of what she must be feeling." She felt herself choke, sitting heavily down in the chair opposite her father, looking at her hands like dead, white pigeons in her lap. "Joffrey was a terrible king, but forgive me, father, I remember him as a little boy. He would climb into my lap and lay against my breast and read to me, and he was sweet then. Am I not permitted just a moment of mourning him as he was then? Just a child."

She burst into tears, then, escaping her father's confused expression, angry as a winter squall. With a hand over her mouth the muffle her crying, she retreated to the window ledge.

To lose a child-

She twisted her head away from the very thought. More than anything, she wanted Sandor. He would understand. He was the only one who could.

Her face was swollen, but when she turned to her father again, he looked chastened.

"I forget sometimes," he said. "I forget how we left you there with them. Of course you would feel for them. You know them, perhaps even better than they know themselves."

Lenna didn't respond right away, instead swallowing the rest of her tears. The child in her belly shifted, and she was grateful for the reminder that it yet lived, that it still quickened in her.

"What is to be done now?" she asked perfunctorily, squeezing her hands together, the fine bones popping. "Lady Sansa is safe here. Tommen on the throne, whatever you think, is a new opportunity. He is very young, I grant you, but he is a good boy. He and Myrcella both. Joffrey got all of the meanness. Neither of the other two have an ounce of malice in them."

"One wonders how they avoided it," Wyman said drily. Lenna darted him a bitter look. "But I do not doubt what you say." He drew out the letter Sansa Stark had borne to them. "What did you make of this? We did not have the opportunity to discuss it last night."

"I would think part of it rather obvious," Lenna said. "The first, at least. Olenna knew Joffrey would be dead before she sent Sansa. That makes some things fairly evident."

"She had him killed."

"More than likely. I'm sure we will hear the greater story before long. Cersei didn't exactly go into detail."

"And the last part," Wyman said, stroking his beard.

Lenna hesitated, her mouth open. She wasn't sure about what she wanted to say, didn't know how complete a truth it was, more a feeling.

"She believes that reuniting the realm is possible," Lenna replied. "I wonder if she knows that Robb Stark yet lives."

"I would wager that woman knows everything and then some," Wyman returned.

"She clearly offers us alliance."

"House Manderly and House Tyrell," her father said wryly. "In all your study of history, Lenna, did you find we ever learned anything from our pasts?"

"Not at all," she replied with a humorless smirk of her own. "We are drawn back and back again into the same petty feuds, able to only go so far in our own rising."

Her father rose and went to the window where she was standing, looking eastward over the sea.

"She is right," he said lowly. "We do have more pressing matters to attend to than our own concerns."

Lenna looked up at him. She saw the shadow of the young man he had been, brash and blustery and full of fight. His face, always kindly in her eyes, had turned to flint as he looked over the Narrow Sea, his eyes narrowed as if he could see all the way to Essos.

"There are reports from the seamen," he said quietly. "Daenerys Targaryen lives."

"She has for a long time," Lenna replied shortly. "We all know the story, how the princess was taken across the sea."

"And now she is no longer a baby," Wyman said. "But the widow of a Dothraki khal, and, they say that she has three dragons."

Lenna was speechless for a moment. _Dragons_ , she thought in wonder, her lips parted. No one had seen dragons in-

"I am not sure of how true the reports of them are," her father continued, "but to be sure she has started to raise an army."

"To what purpose?" Lenna asked, looking back at her father, visions of fire and scales gone.

"What do you think?" her father asked, speaking to her like a silly child. "To take back her throne."

A knock sounded at the door before she could make reply. Lenna went and opened it herself, only to find Sansa Stark standing in the hallway, her nieces and Lady Brienne behind her.

For the second time, Sansa threw her arms around Lenna's neck and held her close. Lenna returned her embrace, surprised when she heard Sansa laugh.

"I'm so glad to be here," she said quietly. "I never imagined-"

"Come in, please," Lenna said, standing aside to usher the family in. Her father had turned from her again, but she saw his agitation in the tight grip of his fingers where they were clasped behind his back. He lifted his head, squaring his shoulders, the breeze from the casement making his white hair to flutter around him like foam, and when he turned to his young guest, his face was once against open and affable, his eyes sparkling.

Lenna had a moment of realization that it was not just her mother who had learned from the Lannisters how to play their games. Her House and its members had much to thank their time in lions' dens for, not least of which was finding sincerity in their masks. There was nothing false in her father's mien when he looked to young Sansa Stark, and she wondered if he saw something of his girls in her young face, still strained by her ordeal.

Sansa came before Wyman a little shyly, dropping a curtsey that made the old lord chortle. His gentleness was not feigned when he bowed, though Lenna could tell he wanted to wrap the poor thing up in a hug. He seemed to understand how important the girl's dignity was to her, and Sansa had developed the air and grace of a real lady in the months since Lenna had last seen her.

"It's a little crowded in here," Wyman said, moving to warm his hands at the hearth, talk of Targaryen princesses and dragons abandoned for the time, "but I would rather not expose you to the Merman's Court, my lady."

Sansa nodded, sinking into the chair that was offered to her. Lenna came to sit beside her while the girls found seats about the room. Brienne of Tarth stood on the opposite side of the mantle from Wyman, her hands clasped behind her back, her mouth drawn downward and drooping.

Sansa slipped her hand into Lenna's, and her fingers were freezing. Lenna chafed them between her own.

"It's gotten quite cold," she said lightly.

"I'd forgotten what it felt like," Sansa said. "I never thought I'd be North again."

Lenna squeezed her hand. "We have much to talk about it seems. Firstly, how did both of you come to be here?" She looked at Brienne, the intense blue gaze shifting away from hers to look at the fire instead.

She felt Sansa take in a deep breath next to her.

"I don't know how much you've heard," Sansa replied. "After you...left," she said, looking at Wylla and Wynna, "I was put aside by the King. I cannot say that the announcement brought me much grief. Joffrey was then betrothed to Margaery Tyrell, and I confess I found a friend in her, and her grandmother, especially once I found myself betrothed to Lord Tyrion."

"We had heard that," Lenna replied, preparing to speak on her old friend's behalf. She would not dissemble to this girl anymore. "Lord Tyrion-"

"Is a good person," Sansa said with difficulty. "At least, as good as he can be."

Lenna smiled tightly. A better judge of character than she seemed, then. "And then what happened?"

"After...the massacre at the Twins…" she continued laboriously. Lenna wished she could ease her burden. "Joffrey told me that Robb was dead. I didn't want to believe him."

"He isn't-"

"I know," Sansa replied quickly. "Lady Olenna told me. Assured me that he wasn't dead."

Lenna looked to her father. Wyman was looking into the flames, the fire casting his rugged old face into a relief of black and gold. _One question answered_ , she thought, _a question that only begets more._

"How could she know that?" Lenna asked quietly. "So few people-"

"I don't know," Sansa replied. "Not really. She didn't tell me how she knew, but she had no reason to lie to me." _Sweet, summer child_ , Lenna thought ruefully. "And she arranged for me to leave King's Landing with Lady Brienne."

"I was sworn to her mother," Brienne said for the benefit of all of them save Lenna. Lenna, of course, already knew. "I will keep her safe and return her to her family."

"There is nowhere for her to go," Wyman said. Then he cleared his throat. "At present."

Lenna felt the tangle of incomprehension in her chest tighten. She tilted her head as she looked to her father, all too aware that he was avoiding her scrutiny, keeping his attention focused on the Maid of Tarth.

"What do you mean by that, father?" she asked tightly.

"Robb Stark has recalled his banners," her father replied, still not looking at her. "We will be campaigning to retake Winterfell from the Boltons."

Too many revelations for one day. Lenna might have felt faint if her father's words hadn't instead girded her, like armor was forming beneath her skin and holding her taller. She had the strange impulse to take a pen to paper, to map out these moving, unclosed and incompletely circles: the Freys, the Boltons, the Lannisters, and now, the Targaryen princess.

"What of the Freys?" Lenna asked, that circle spinning undecidedly in her mind. A circle that wasn't quite closed.

"We will contend with them later," Wyman answered. "The hope is to rout out Bolton and scatter his forces. With Ramsay dead-"

"How do you know he's dead?" Lenna asked. "Have you confirmation?"

Wyman nodded once. Lenna nearly groaned. "All of them?"

"Aye," he replied. "Set upon by brigands near Moat Cailin."

Wynna's head turned in Lenna's direction, but she didn't speak. Neither did Wylla, suddenly fascinated with the state of her nail beds. Sansa looked puzzled, but she was too mannerly to demand an explanation. Lenna was glad for once for her pretty manners.

"A pity," Lenna breathed, horrified at the uncoiling of her own relief. A circle closed, and then she saw it for what it was. Not a circle, but a link.

"Wylis has been released," her father continued. "He is on his way to Riverrun, perhaps there already."

"And from there?" Lenna asked, keen to know.

"We will retake Winterfell from the Boltons," her father replied.

"Our forces-"

"Strong enough," her father replied. "The armies were left largely untouched. They retreated quickly enough by all accounts. Scattered to the winds, of course, but intact. Bolton and Frey did not plan on that. Somehow, the camps were emptied before the raiding began."

"Somehow," Lenna replied, looking to Wendel. "We did not fail so completely after all, it seems."

Wendel shook his head. "I am to make for Riverrun again, sister."

"Not through the Twins," she said quickly. "Wendel, you can't-"

"Of course not," he said, laying a hand on her white wrist. "North and around. It will take longer, but it is necessary, I think."

She sat back in her chair, relieved.

"Begging your pardons," Sansa said quietly, drawing all of their eyes back to her. "But when you said I have nowhere to go, that isn't quite true-"

"What do you mean?" Wyman asked, looking at the girl.

"Robb is in Riverrun, and of course you can't send me there, but," she said, "I have another brother."

Wyman's face clouded. "Your brothers, Bran and Rickon, I am afraid they are dead, my lady."

She swallowed back a wave of pain, but cornflower blue eyes rose again rather defiantly.

"No," she said quietly. "Not them. My _other_ brother."

Lenna looked at her sharply. "You can't mean to go to Castle Black."

"Why not?" she replied. "It is safe, fortified, and my brother-"

"Women are not permitted," Wyman said. "You had better stay here. For the time being, at least."

Sansa nodded, then stood quickly. "I would take some air," she said suddenly. Wyman looked to Lenna and nodded.

The women left him sitting behind his desk and staring at some middle distance, his mind far too occupied. Lenna worried for him when he was like that, brooding and dark, but Wendel squeezed her arm and pushed her out the door.

 _Let the men talk_ , she thought waspishly, her head spinning. It was not the first time she wished she could go back to that time before the Blackwater, before the King Robert's death, when all she had to worry about was missing her family and whether her enormous guard really did look at her the way she imagined that he did, and if he would ever act on it.

She sighed heavily as she trailed after Sansa, drawing the girl's attention. Wylla and Wynna hung back from them, speaking lowly to each other as Lenna and Brienne haunted Sansa's steps. The girl was so pale she almost glowed, the dark red hair vibrant against the gray skies that it hurt Lenna's eyes to look at it, a redbird in the bracken. She was a true beauty now, though such a sad one.

"You know," Sansa said lowly, pulling even with Lenna and looping her hand through her elbow, just as she had always done in the past. "You know, I was always terrible to Jon. Now I wish that I hadn't been." She paused for a long moment, face sharpened by sorrow. "He's all I have left. He and Robb."

Lenna laid her own hand over the girl's cold fingers. "I'm sure he understands."

"No," Sansa bit out. "Don't say that. I don't deserve-"

"We all make mistakes," Lenna replied softly. "We all say and do things were regret."

Sansa froze at her side. "I should have gone with you that night," Sansa said tightly. "When you left. I didn't understand-"

"Hush."

"I thought he- oh, Lenna. I went to the queen and told her that he-"

"Of course you did," Lenna replied. "You did only as you thought you ought, Sansa."

"That is the trouble," Sansa replied, her voice thick. "I thought I knew, and I had no idea. I mean, I did...but I didn't either."

Lenna looked at her patiently.

"I knew," she whispered. "The way he looked at you, how careful he was, almost gentle-but I never thought that you-"

"I see my nieces have been telling romantic stories," Lenna said without malice. "You saw more than we wished as it is. Do not trouble yourself."

"But you love him and there is a price on his head because of me."

Lenna actually laughed. Of all the revelations that day, intended or not, this one was the least.

"Sansa," she said quietly. "There would have been a bounty on his head one way or another. He abandoned Joffrey, his king." She took the girl's hands in her own. "If anything, you did us a favor. All of us."

"How?"

Lenna wondered how so many of these players, like actors in a play, could not see the extent of their own reach, the ripples of the stones they cast.

"Because in telling the queen that he kidnapped me, you kept me in her grace," Lenna said quietly. "She, like you, believes that I am on her side. She has no reason to think otherwise."

Sansa hesitated. "Are you?"

It was Lenna's turn to pause and the child shifted within her. "I am on _our_ side, dear girl. Take that as you will."

Sandor LIV

Not a single salty word left the child's mouth once she put together where he was taking her. He'd woken her in the barn with a nudge of the toe, getting them on their way before their host and his daughter would be awake. It was still fully dark out, stars still winking in the gradually lightening sky, and they were three leagues away before the faint pinks and golds of dawn even began to tinge the trees at their backs.

It was a rash decision, no doubt about that. He couldn't explain it, why he was turning his back on the Vale and aiming them westward again. There was plenty of time to ruminate on why he was not willing to leave the child to her fate in the Eyrie, but all he could settle on was a vague suspicion that it would be a mistake to do it, something in his gut that coiled and flicked as warily as a cat's tail. It was the same feeling he'd had in the days before the Blackwater, not know what was going to happen and expecting the worst.

She was smart, the Stark girl. He wondered that she could be so different from her frivolous sister, but guessed he shouldn't be that surprised. He wasn't exactly like his brother, either, not even in stature. Where Sandor Clegane might be seen as most as enormous, he was significantly smaller than his monster of a brother, a characteristic that Gregor had exploited for as long as Sandor had been alive. As far as he could remember, there had never been a time when they were brotherly, his elder always vicious and resentful that he'd even been born. Fear had been his companion since he was a toddler, fear and his own indignant rage.

The little wolf was certainly indignant, too, though she had become far more pleasant in the weeks since they'd started ranging westward. Her attitude had shifted, she talked more, which was a mixed blessing, and she didn't argue with every last thing he did. Instead, she had taken to doing what he asked, though each morning she wanted him to dance with her.

He smirked at that. Dance with her. The girl was still reluctant to give up her Braavosi friend's speech, but he humored her. He humored her and he watched as she became adept at close fighting, skinny little blade and skinny little legs dancing circles around him, almost too quick for him to strike.

Almost.

Her only protests these days were the bruises. He was careful, thwacking her with the flat of his blade, and only then when necessary to teach her a lesson. Arya was a Stark, through and through, and there were moments when her perverse honor and noble entitlement made it impossible for him to do anything but discipline her. She was wild and rangy as her family's sigil, and those traits, though they had kept her alive for quite some time, would eventually be her downfall if she didn't learn to control her impulses.

She was sitting before him on the saddlebow, quite happily munching on one of the sour pippin apples he'd pulled down for them earlier, humming in her whiny, tuneless voice. The countryside had become a bit of a blur to him, the dying trees blending into each other in a current of gold and bronze.

He was losing his touch, not noticing the scene they were stumbling into until after it was too late. Sandor slid from Stranger's back, drawing his sword from its scabbard. The sight of Arya Stark copying him so solemnly might have amused him at another time. Now, it just made him weary.

A burnt out croft, still smoldering as the smoke smudged into the trees, winding lazily through the skeleton of charred roofbeams; the body of a woman sprawled face down in the golden grass, a bright patch of scarlet matting her hair, painting the upturned palm of one unnaturally twisted hand; an older man leaning against his wagon, his middle a mass of black.

He sheathed his sword, no other sound but that of the crickets in the deepening twilight. By the time night fell, the man on the ground before him would be dead.

"You shouldn't be sitting out here like this," Arya said, addressing the old man. He was a grizzled old farmer, his hair close cropped and peppered with white and silver. When he looked up, his head lolling with the pain, it wasn't at the girl that he directed his gaze, but at Sandor.

He knew what the man wanted just from the way his mouth drooped open.

"Nowhere else to sit," he rumbled. "Tried to walk back to my hut, but it hurt too much. Then, I remembered they burnt my hut down."

"Who were they?" Sandor demanded as gently as he could.

"I stopped asking a while ago," the farmer replied, staring at the dirt in defeat. Sandor swallowed, standing back up and looking about them. He knew his brother's work when he saw it.

He sighed, crouching down by the man. "That's not going to get better," he said, pointing at the dark spread of blood at the man's middle. The reek of it would have overwhelmed others, but he'd smelled enough gut wounds that he didn't even sniff.

"Doesn't seem so," the man replied quietly, resignation and exhaustion in every line of his body.

"Bad way to go," Sandor said. "Haven't you had enough?"

"Of what?" the man asked, one last attempt to ignore what was going to happen, and soon. He shook his head slightly when Sandor shifted. "I know. Time to go. Take matters into my own hands. Thought has occurred to me."

Sandor sat back on his haunches, lifting his nose as if to scent the air. Death was close, both he and this old man knew it. If he'd been the one with his stomach blackening like pitch, he'd have already gone, let himself slip off like the smoke rising from the smoldering remains of the man's hut was rising up through the trees. There was no hastening a man's decision, though, so he waited.

"So why go on?"

Sandor's brow flicked up in surprise. He'd nearly forgotten about Arya Stark, her puglike little face smoothed in concern, like he imagined his was when he was talking down a skittish horse, or- he thought of Lenna at her casement that night, her eyes fixed on the waters, looking for an escape that he would not let her take.

"Habit," the old man replied with a sigh, like he was chewing over some daily issue with his neighbors and not waiting for the end.

"Nothing can be worse than this," Arya said, voice too still, too calm for the child that she was. She spoke like someone well acquainted with death. Sandor reckoned that she was.

"Maybe nothing is worse than this," the old man replied. Sandor grunted. He'd had that thought a time or two himself.

"Nothing isn't better or worse than anything. Nothing is just nothing."

Painless, empty, dark. It had never frightened Sandor, his end. Since he'd been this girl's age, he had the notion that it was creeping toward him steadily, fended off by this duck or that weave, turning on the man at the other end of his sword by nothing more than a hair. Yet, he'd gone to bed each night with the hot hungering for another dawn.

If he'd been the man with his guts stinking like a latrine, he'd have delayed its coming, too.

"Who are you?" the old man asked.

"My name's Arya. Arya Stark," the girl said, and for a moment, Sandor saw her sister, her mother in her face. Arya wasn't the heathen little wolf girl just then, but a noblewoman, fully aware of her duty to the smallfolk, respectful and kind. She had Catelyn Stark's face for just a flash, though the eyes that looked back at the old man were Lord Eddard's, even and steely and able to see too much.

"You her father?" the old man asked, twisting his neck to look at Sandor. Even crouching, he overshadowed the old farmer.

"Her guard," he replied honestly. Dead rats didn't squeak, and neither did dead men. "Taking her to brother for safe keeping."

"Reward?"

"Probably." The only reward he wanted as a sack of provisions and a northerly road.

"I always held to the notion of a fair exchange in all my dealings," the old man mused, wincing with the effort of staying himself. Sandor wasn't used to dead men who wouldn't admit they were dead. "I give you. You give me. Fair. A balance." Simple, Sandor thought. Simple, and too rare in the world he and Arya Stark lived in. What life could have been if any of them had switched places. "No balance anymore. Can I have a drink? Dying is thirsty work."

Sandor bit off the cap with his own teeth, proffering the waterskin to the man. He held it almost tenderly to his lips, letting the man drink his fill and ignoring the answering gurgle from the wound.

"Wish it were wine," the man said, and Sandor wiped the water from his beard with a wry grin.

"So do I," he replied lowly, sliding the blade he'd taken from his boot through the man's heart, quick and soft as a whispered word. The old man looked up at him in surprise, but also with a faint smile. A service rendered, thanks given.

When the man was dead, Sandor extracted the blade, wiping it on the old man's sleeve. Made no difference to him now, he'd crossed over into the dark.

"That's where the heart is," he said, looking up at Arya from beneath careful still brows. "That's how you kill a man-"

The moment was lost, the strange, gray peace that had fallen in that little clearing to mark the old man's passing, the giving of a lesson.

Death was still in that clearing, it seemed.

He'd never been bitten in a fight before, and it surprised him, irked him, more than it hurt. He threw the man off his shoulders. He was a big brute, but he wasn't a match for Sandor. He put himself between the child and their attackers, three rangy men in clothes little more than rags.

"You looking to die?" he bellowed, the men grinning back at them madly. The one who'd bitten him had blood around his mouth - his- and the other was dancing back and forth on his feet with glee. The third though, little more than a boy with yellow hair like a tomcat's, he was looking at Sandor with a dumb expression on his face but shock and recognition in his dun-colored eyes. He started for a moment like a rabbit, then leapt into the undergrowth, the sound of his leather-soled feet disappearing into the wood.

 _Fuck_.

"I know this man," Arya said, her little blade extended. "He was one of the men Yoren was transporting. He said he'd fuck me bloody with a stick."

Sandor growled.

"I'd have done it, too," the man replied, teeth like crags and hair hanging in a greasy curtain. "Only your Braavosi friend-"

"Shut up," Arya spat. "Shut up before I make you shut up."

The man had the idiocy to laugh.

"Where you coming from?" Sandor asked, hand flexing on his hilt.

"You know where," the man replied. "Been looking for you, he has."

Sandor heaved a great sigh. "He on your list, little wolf?"

Arya darted a glance at him, shifting on her spread feet. "He can't be. I don't know his name."

He almost let fly the dry laugh in his throat.

"What's your name?" he asked the madman.

"Rorge," he answered, confirming Sandor's suspicion that this man was as stupid as he was crazy.

"Thank you," Arya said, her eyes never leaving the other man's face as her mouth twisted up into a grin, the man's mad glint now glittering in her own gaze.

It took one straight thrust, right into the heart like he'd just shown her, and the beast was felled to his knees, hands grappling in shock at the slim blade protruding from his chest. Sandor barely had to lift his sword to kill the other, and it was a lazy kill.

"You're learning," he said, watching as she pulled out her sword and wiped it on the dead man's tunic.

"My second man," she said quietly.

He grunted. "Best not to keep count," he replied acidly. The child smirked, looking content as a barncat full of mice. Sandor almost wanted to return it, a strange kinship stretching between them, but death was still stalking in the footsteps of a dull yellow-haired boy and his master, waiting somewhere in these woods.

"Help me bury the farmer," Sandor said quietly. "We'll leave the rest for the crows."

A/N: Took longer than anticipated. Working on the next bit, hopefully with more Sandor. As always, thanks for reading and reviewing. I can smell the end. Truly, I can.


	55. Chapter 55

Sandor LV

It had been three days since he and the Stark girl had buried the farmer in the shadow of his ruined croft. Three days since he had continued warily westward, his ears more alert than his eyes, listening for the birds, for the crackle of twigs.

There were several times he thought he heard laughter, shaking his head at his own foolishness.

All he wanted was five days. Just five days and he'd have the girl back to her brother and he could face the demon stalking the wood by himself.

Not wishing to alarm the girl, Sandor had told her nothing of his suspicions. He had recognized the work of his brother that day in the clearing, the croft burned to cinders, the old man left to stew in his own innards, a slow and painful death. Sandor wondered if he had interrupted the party. Surely his brother would have wanted to stay and watch the old man bleed out like a stuck pig, the smells of his own entrails wafting up to make him retch.

But he said nothing to the girl, not even when the fucking bite on his shoulder started to ache. It turned bright red and smelled foul, and he tried to hide his careful cleaning of it each time they reached fresh water.

She was a smart girl, for a Stark.

"That will fester," she said glumly. Since they'd put the old man in the ground, Arya Stark had gone between almost insane high spirits and sullen drooping, even more so than usual. One minute she'd be purely giggling with glee, the next spiteful and full of spleen. Her tone at the moment was merely flat, as if she was commenting on the weather.

"I'm fine," he replied. He was cleaning it as best he could, wincing each time he moved, the wound between his shoulder and neck pulling every time he tried to wipe it clean.

"You won't be," she retorted sharply. "Let me clean it."

"Said I'm fine," he growled. "I'll take care of it myself."

The girl huffed. "You're doing it wrong. You need to burn it away."

Sandor shut his eyes tightly. As much as he rued to admit it, he knew the girl was right. It was already blackening at the edges, from what he could see, the rest of it an angry bright red. The flesh felt tight, engorged, and it made him nervous.

"I know you don't like fire-"

"Get on with it," he bit out. The girl's surprise hung in the air, then he heard her move toward the fire, the metallic scrape of her blade as she drew it from the sheath.

After long minutes, the girl laid her hand on his shoulder, a tiny pressure that reminded him of how little she was, how young, and the heat of the knife's blade licked at his skin. With a quick movement, she put the flat to the wound and Sandor hissed at the pain.

Strange how that pain made him want to run, to swoon, the lay on the ground and writhe, him, a man who had once seen his own guts and not batted an eye, who had been cut and bruised, hacked and chopped beyond his own remembering. But one little lick of flame-

"There," she said. "I'll bind it."

He kept himself still while the child lay a bit of clean cloth over the burn she'd made. He imagined it in his mind's eye, thin and sharp-edged, just like her, and definitely going to a leave a scar. She was too small to run the bandage around him and he helped her, but he let her tie the clumsy knot. He could retie it later when she wouldn't see it.

"Enough," he said, shrugging her off as she patted his shoulder. It was such a childish gesture, almost fond.

She huffed, moving back to the opposite side of the fire, just as glum as she had been before.

"How much longer?" she asked after a time. The pain his shoulder was ebbing, but it was still white hot whenever he shifted.

"A few days," he replied, doing his best to imbue his voice with more confidence than he felt. How could he explain? "Look. That man back there."

"The old farmer?" she asked. When he glanced her way, the large gray eyes were burning like coals.

"Aye," he replied. "The men that did it-"

"Rorge," she supplied. "The Biter."

"Would you shut up and let me finish?" he snapped. "The men that did that were my brother's men. They're nearby. If we were to meet them, you must promise," he continued, a finger waving in her face now. He'd gotten up and taken three strides toward the girl. She sat looking up at him like some damned pup with her wounded eyes. "You must promise," he rasped, "that you will hide. You will not try to fight, you will not try to help me. You must hide and run and the first chance you get."

"I'm good with a sword-"

"I didn't say you weren't, little wolf," he said. Her face filled with something like pleasure, but it disappeared. "But you cannot help against him."

Instead of protesting, she continued to listen.

"What should I do if-"

"Run," he replied, not needing her to finish the thought. "You run as fast and as a far as you can go. If anything happens to me, you know how to take care of yourself."

For a long moment, the child looked stricken, as if she had just woken up from a nightmare only to find it was real.

"You've been teaching me," she mumbled. "You knew this could happen."

"Aye," he grunted. From the minute he'd turned tail with Arya Stark silent across his saddlebow, he'd known it was a good possibility that both of them would not make it to safety. Heading back into the territory that lay between the Starks and the Lannisters had always been a risk, but he'd sworn that stupid oath and the stupid King had given him the order. Made no difference now that he'd broken it. He'd persisted in trying to fulfill it long enough that it might still kill them both.

He rather hoped the girl would make it.

Her little face contorted into a scowl fit to frighten the gods. "You'd leave me alone."

"Don't want to, little wolf," he said truthfully. "I know what it is to be alone myself."

"My brother."

"Riverrun," he growled. "You could go there."

"My aunt."

"You wouldn't go to her."

"My sister."

He often wondered where she was. If she was alive. A waste if she wasn't, for what Lenna had paid for her. "If you know where she is, then, aye, by all means."

She went silent. "What if I don't want to go to any of them?"

He let out a rough breath. "I should have taken you to Maidenpool and been done with it," he rasped, and it was the truth. "Aye, go to Braavos for all I care."

"You'll be dead," she said drily, goadingly, questioningly.

"Probably," he replied flatly. He felt it coming and it made him melancholy.

"And if we don't meet him?" Her little voice was hopeful, and he couldn't bring himself to squash it, hopeless as he knew it was.

"Then all this foolish talking will have been worthless," he said. "Already was. What will happen will happen."

He woke up that morning feeling something off in the air, whether it was that strange death specter that had dogged them in the long string of days since they'd stumbled upon the blackened farm or just his own strange sense of doom. The air seemed thinner and thicker at the same time, the colors of the autumn trees brazen and sharp against gray skies. The air was thinner, but it was sweet.

Even going overland did not confound his brother, and by the time Sandor scented the fire and saw the smoke rising from the ridge it was too late.

"Run," Sandor whispered. "Take the horse and run."

He slid from the saddle, turning and slapping Stranger's rear as the Stark girl reached for him, little face full of distress. Underwater. He felt like he was underwater, watching her ride away and thinking she was going to slow, despite the clods of earth heaved up by the stallion's massive hooves, dark spots against the sky like crows.

And he felt he was underwater as he drew his sword and resheathed it through Lannister armor, blood coating his hand as the man, a big burly fellow with a strong yellow beard and eyes that looked like the inflated pig bladders children played with, slid the length of his blade as though spitted like a rabbit for supper. He sputtered and went gray, blood scarlet on his lips, and then he slumped, Sandor trying to flip him off the sword, reeling from the blow landed across his back.

He went to a knee, managing to extract the sword from the dead man just in time to pierce the next man, their bloods mixing on the blade, on his hands.

He lost count, picking them off as they came at him in a steady onslaught. It wasn't particularly hard, except for the dull, hot ache in his shoulder. He fought them and he killed them, and the entire time he saw him, waiting at the edge of the clearing like some horror from a children's story, hands held easily at his sides and his teeth flashing in the sunlight.

Sandor was covered in blood and winded by the time the last of his brother's men lay dead. They were scattered around him like a strange flock of sheep, insides turned outside, glistening in the morning light. Rubies in the grass. He leaned on his sword and waited.

The Mountain waited a long time, and Sandor wondered if he was giving him time to recover or trying to goad him into an ill-advised attack. He knew better than the make the first move. His brother was stupid in many ways, but he could see the outcome of a parry and thrust more accurately than a chess-master could a game.

So, he waited.

To his surprise, there was no fear. Only hate and bile. As his brother walked across the little distance, stepping over the corpses of the men he'd supped with, camped with, and led, there was not a trace of hesitation or sorrow in him. They were just things, puppets, weak little worms that he'd played with a while and now didn't mind seeing broken and ruined. They were worthless to him, dead or alive.

It had always been that way, Gregor's cold cruelty. He doubted if Gregor had loved in his life, not even their mother and father, the two who had coddled and praised and excused him infraction after injury.

"About time, little brother," Gregor said. Sandor didn't shudder, though that voice was to him like iron scraping against stone. He hadn't heard it in years.

"You can fucking say that again."

Gregor laughed, shaking his head just so, teeth flashing. He might have been handsome if he hadn't been so monstrous. Handsome in the beefy way King Robert had been before he went to seed.

Gregor Clegane was the ugliest fuck in the Seven Kingdoms, though, beady eyes under beetled brows. His face was rough with sun and wind and something else not caused by nature. His lips were straight, unused to smiling, and when he smirked they looked broken, jagged.

"Come to find me, then? Well, you have," Gregor rumbled. "But you're too late, little brother, to save your woman."

Sandor didn't reply. _Lies_ , he said to himself, still struggling to even his breathing.

"Don't worry," Gregor went on. "She's safe from me. Married to a Frey from what I heard. Her own father sold her to them, along with his other women. Spineless old fatarse."

 _No_ , Sandor thought, his hand on his pommel, tempering himself.

"Don't believe me?" Gregor asked, his laugh cracking like a rockslide. "Doesn't fucking matter. She's lucky. Who'd want your whore, anyway? Better than she deserved. If I'd gotten my hands on her-"

Sandor stopped thinking, stopped caring about anything but making Gregor shut his damn mouth. He lunged forward clumsily, lashing out. The Mountain chuckled.

"You don't want to hear, little brother? How I'd crush her and bloody her? What a sight she would be." Sandor took a step forward and Gregor sidled back. "Come on, runt. You can do better than that. Been waiting your whole life for this haven't you? Pathetic fuck."

Sandor felt it, the battle rage as it burned hot and white. When next he brought his sword down, it clashed against his brother's steel. The collision was enough to make his bones vibrate, the marrow itself shifting in its hollows. He let out a growl as Gregor pressed him back.

It went on and on, Gregor leading him here, pushing him there, swords ringing through the autumn air, the sounds rising like sparks from a flint. Their cries and grunts rang off the stones, the terrain rocky and uneven. Sandor was only tangentially aware of where he was, too intent on his brother's sweating face, his own eyes hot and animal as they bore into his across the flashing of the blades.

The both landed blows, the pain only serving to sharpen them, reminding them both that this was real, this was sweet. They'd both yearned for it, Sandor realized, wanting nothing so much as the other's destruction, to stand above each other's bleeding, mangled corpse with a brother's blood in their mouths and on their hands.

He felt himself weakening, his brother still going strong, still hurling insults and provocations. Sandor closed his ears to them, focusing on the fight as much as he can, feeling the tide turning. It wasn't in his favor, and he felt death step between them.

He nearly stumbled at the ravine's edge, his foot sliding and Sandor rocking to keep himself from falling. He didn't dare glance back to see how deep it was. He didn't want to know, nor did he think he could take his eye from Gregor for a second. It would take one small thrust, and he'd over and gone.

Then there was a flash, a grey bolt of brightness around Gregor's legs, a cry like a wounded boar as Gregor's legs buckled under him, and then they were falling together.

Gregor had dropped his sword, and he grappled toward Sandor, seizing him around the hips as they tumbled. Somehow, Sandor kept his grip on the hilt of his blade, even though his wrist and fingers were bashed against the rocks again and again. It was a deep ravine, and Sandor screamed when his left leg snapped beneath the knee, and again when he came to rest on the gully's floor as Gregor's massive body hit his right shin and sent an ungodly flood of pain through him. He heard it break, but barely felt it, though he almost retched.

 _Fuck_ , he thought blindly. Gregor rolled up on his side, only to go down again, a little hand with a wicked little blade bringing a slender hilt down upon the back of his massive head. He shook it off, his face that of a stunned ox, leaning back and giving Sandor just the time he needed. With the last bit of his strength, he thrust his sword through his brother's chest, beneath the breastbone, and saw the look of surprise and then anger on Gregor's face as he leaned into the blow, muscles tensing and then going slack as he slumped to the side.

Sandor looked at him through the haze of pain, his stupid eyes dulled in death, and felt inexplicably cheated. It hadn't been as glorious as he had imagined, killing the Mountain. He'd dreamt of this moment most of his life, but looking at the body of his brother, he felt both tremendous relief and completely unmoored.

Arya Stark was there, her little face in his. Anger simmered, anger that she'd disobeyed him, anger that she had put herself at risk.

"I told you to run," he said dully, trying to move and finding that he could not. The Stark girl crouched beside him, her blade ruddy with his brother's blood. His shoulder hurt him more than tongue could tell. He had broken ribs, and he was breathing so irregularly, with such burning pain, that he was she he'd punctured a rib. Not to mention his legs. He glanced down and could see the bright white of bone winking in the dappled light. He regarded them detachment, but he could not feel them, though his blood was still pulsing lazily from the whole in leg.

He looked at the Stark girl. She was covered in filth, but the gray eyes looked back at him, clear and bright.

"What did you do to him?" he asked, already suspecting the answer.

"I hobbled him," she replied. "Heels and knees." She looked down at his legs and her little face went white.

"You know what they do to horses when they break a leg," he rasped, following her gaze. He still couldn't feel them, and he knew what it meant.

She nodded.

"I won't walk out of here, little wolf," he said quietly. Gods, it hurt to speak. "But you will."

"No."

"My dagger," he said calmly, ignoring her refusal. "It's in my boot. But you know that already." He tasted blood when he coughed. "Do for me what I did for that farmer. You know where the heart is."

She didn't move. He looked around, head swinging gracelessly, a drunken ox, and he managed to reach for his brother's knife. He must have managed to extract it on the fall. It was fitting that they should die by each other's blades. A terrible justice.

He held it out to the girl. She recoiled as if it were a burning brand.

"I can't," she whispered back, shrilled and panicked. "I can't do it."

"Why not?" he roared, trying to pull her close, turning the dagger and pushing it against his own breast. He knew he couldn't do it, not to himself. He tried to seize her hand, but she eluded him, slipping back on her heels with a look of such betrayal. He fought to breathe, to talk, to plead. "Just do it, girl. It's mercy."

"No," she whispered, flinging herself backward again, striking out with her arm and sending the knife flying, hitting the rocks with a clatter than made his head vibrate.

Fuck if he was going to die arguing with a stupid Stark.

"Please," he said, the last of his breath a wheeze. It took all of his strength to keep his head up and his eyes open. "Arya. Please."

She shook her head. "I took you off my list," she whispered, as if that explained everything. "Weeks ago. You aren't on my list, so I can't do it."

He grunted, feeling dark creeping in, the edges of his vision going hazy. He felt the little parcel on his breast light as a pressed palm, and he wanted to see it. He wanted to feel the hair against his fingers.

"Lenna," he said weakly.

"You can't die," she said, her voice shrill. "You can't leave me. You can't leave her."

 _You're shit at dying, dog_ , he thought weakly. He tried to smirk, but it hurt too much.

"Lenna," he repeated again, trying to find the handkerchief, willing the girl to understand what he wanted. If he was going, he wanted it to be with what little he had left of her.

He was unsuccessful, and he wanted to weep. His fingers had gone stubby and clumsy, uncontrollable, and he grunted with frustration. She was lost to him and he was dead. He had failed, oh gods, he had finally _failed_.

What little strength he had left ebbed and his hands fell slack. Nothing mattered, he was going to die next to his brother in the middle of this wilderness, his corpse was going to be eaten by wild animals, and this child wouldn't even give him the comfort of a swift death. She was forcing him to slip away, didn't she knew how hard it was? Didn't she know that he didn't want to die? Dying meant it was over, and that was so final. The image of _her_ standing on the walls of Riverrun, a dark shape against the gray sky, flitted across his wavering vision. Gods, he hadn't wanted that to be the last time he saw her.

He'd known even then that it would be.

He felt the black coming from him, the same simpering shadow that had dogged his heels for months. Probably years, if he was being honest. The only thing that kept Sandor Clegane alive this long was a refusal to die. The worst of it was, he was still refusing, but his body was no longer listening to him.

He sucked in a breath. To his dim surprise, a little hand dug into his breastplate, rooting around until it found what it sought. The Stark girl brought his arm across his belly and pressed the handkerchief to his palm. It was almost black with blood and filth, but he managed to insert one finger into its folds, stopping when he felt the silk of hair against the rough pad of his finger.

Speech was gone, but so was most of the pain now. His chest felt heavy, full, and the girl stared steadily back at him, gray eyes welling with tears. Her shoulders were shaking, and he didn't know if she was sobbing or not. He couldn't hear very well anymore. There was a strange humming in his ears that sounded suspiciously like singing, a familiar voice, but he couldn't remember where he'd heard it.

 _I wad do- what wad I no? For the sake o' Somebody..._

Then Arya Stark surprised him. She sidled up next to him and laid a head on his shoulder.

"Not alone," she murmured, and Sandor sank into the dark like singing into a feather bed. It was warmer than he expected, and soft, and far too soon.

The voice came again, a breathless keening, and there was nothing.

 _I sit, I sigh, I weep, I faint, I die_

 _In deadly pain and endless misery._

Lenna LV

Their daughter was born the day the first snows came. Lenna was walking the ramparts with Sansa when the pains came upon her, not particularly strong, but alarming enough that she reached out and seized Sansa's slim hand in her own fingers.

"Lenna?" the girl said, concern marring her young face.

"It's coming," Lenna replied, smiling despite her discomfort in breathless delight. "I think it's time."

She was both right and wrong. It was time, and the baby was coming, but not for many hours yet. Her labor was not something she hoped to remember later, seeming to last forever, such cycles of pain and exertion that left her feeling ancient and boneless. It lasted throughout the night, the stout little midwife coming to tut over her by candlelight, shaking her head every time her father stuck his head in to check on her 'progress' as he called it.

Adalyn came the next morning, before noon, the room having become so stuffy that Wynna had thrown open the windows to let in the chill air despite the midwife's protests, her own hair plastered to her forehead just as Lenna's was. The wind rushed in, and at that moment the child came into the world. Lenna could vividly remember the silhouette of niece through the haze of pain and relief, the strange bareness of her body once the child had slipped free. Wynna's slim figure transfixed at the window, snowflakes eddying through the billowing curtains as the child let out a robust cry that was more an announcement than a wail.

The midwife cleaned the babe off and laid it on Lenna's breast, and when she looked into her child's face, gray eyes like the winter sky looked back at her, so familiar that she nearly stopped breathing. The child's impossibly small hands worked in the air, but they lay looking at each other, fascinated.

"A girl, my lady," the midwife said quietly. "You have a daughter."

Lenna hadn't held a baby in years, not since Myrcella was a wee thing, and never had holding once brought on such an overwhelming surge of feeling. The rest of the room seemed to fade away, and she reached out a finger, tracing it across the baby's palm. _His_ daughter grasped at her with a unsurprisingly strong grip.

"Her name?" Wynna asked, having drifted back toward the bed.

"Adalyn," Lenna replied without hesitation. "Adalyn Clegane."

"A good time to tell your family," the midwife said to Wynna with a smile. "We still have some business here."

Wynna ducked out into the hall with the baby, and Lenna was later grateful for the privacy. It was a messy business, birthing, and she shuddered and shook for quite a while after, but she felt much more herself when Wynna returned with the infant. Lenna took her back, only vaguely aware of her father and Wendel, of Wylla and Sansa Stark and Brienne Tarth.

She felt selfish for wanting to keep her to herself, regretfully handing the baby back over to her clearly adoring family. Sansa Stark reached for Adalyn eagerly, and Lenna saw her face untroubled for the first time in years, cooing at the child and exclaiming as Addy, for that's what she would be called, burbled and yawned and bobbed in and out of sleep. Sansa taught Wylla how to hold her, supporting her neck, and even Brienne Tarth took a turn. She looked so uncomfortable and awkward that Lenna almost laughed, putting her in mind of Sandor when Myrcella had been a babe, bracing the child against a long forearm, her forehead wrinkled in concern and perhaps befuddlement. They stared at each other dubiously, but the warrior's face softened when the babe reached toward her, and somehow one overlarge fingertip made its way into a diminutive fist, just as it would had her father have been standing there instead of Brienne.

Sandor. Her bright smile dimmed a little bit, wishing he was there. He would have been so pleased to see this little girl. For all his brusqueness, Sandor had always been good with the royal children. In the beginning, it was his care for Myrcella and Tommen, even Joffrey, that had made her more open to the idea that he was more than his reputation. She'd seen his hand ghost over the princess' curls more than a few times, that little lopsided smirk on his lip, affection in his eyes. He'd played with both the boys, even if his face had stayed neutral, in on their little pranks.

If he'd been able, if he'd known, he'd have been there, proudly toting that child around just as her father now was, the babe nearly disappearing in her portly grandfather's embrace.

It took her longer than she expected to feel herself, weeks longer, and even when she was physically able to move around as freely and comfortably as she had before the baby, there were odd moments when her world seemed to stop. She wanted to take joy in the child, and she did, an immense satisfaction and incomparable pleasure, but it was always just a little diminished, a bit gray and torn around the edges.

And the child grew rapidly from her perspective. Lenna found herself intensely jealous of sharing Addy, wanting to hold onto their intimacy a while longer, the feeling of them being together for the nine months of her pregnancy. She insisted on nursing the child herself, much to the midwife's consternation. It wasn't done, she was told, noblewomen didn't feed their own babies.

Lenna did.

Addy went wherever she did in the New Castle, but Lenna kept herself confined for long months after the birth. Her arrival had been such news in the city, of course, so her disappearance from public life was explained away as grief over the death of her fiance. Perwyn Frey's body had been found along the road past Moat Cailin, and it was an easy lie. Lenna wondered how many of her father's people actually believed it, but there were few rumors in the city itself, the ones further afield working in her favor, she would assume.

She'd taken to heart Olenna Tyrell's imperative: prepare. So she did her best, despite having little idea what she was preparing for. It gave her a purpose beyond caring for the child, beyond worrying about Sandor. As a result, Wyman Manderly's study had become hers as much as her fathers. There was a cradle beside her desk where Addy stayed beside her, and Lenna lost herself in their work: ravens back and forth to Riverrun and the King, books and ledgers related to the running of the city, the news reports from her father's allies. She read them all, took copious notes, and fretted.

The wind from the open casement became more and more frigid, the sky going that pale, crystalline blue of winter, but Lenna kept them open, the curtains fluttering in the breeze. There were times when she felt like she would burst from her own skin, feeling so hot and swollen from frustration that she had to take long breaths of the chill air to remind herself of where and who she was, her blood thinning to bubbles and her heart hammering irregularly against her ribs.

If only she knew where he was.

"It's cold as a witch's tit in here, girl, how do you stand it?"

Lenna stood abruptly from the desk and turned. She had been so singularly focused on her work, on her own heartbeat, that she hadn't heard the footsteps in the corridor or the heavy door as it swung open.

A woman stood in the open door, her father behind her looking sullen and resigned. She was tall, as tall as Lenna herself, and only a little stooped around the shoulders, though her heavy brocaded garments disguised the fact. She was old but the face framed by its wimple was still winsome, the eyes cracking with energy as she looked at Lenna.

"They told me you'd look like her," she said, voice reedy and strangely musical, "but I have never seen a ghost before now."

"My lady," Lenna murmured, bobbing a curtsy. When she rose, the woman was standing directly before her, a wizened hand under her chin, turning her face this way and then that, like a child being examined, or a horse.

"Extraordinary," she murmured.

"Lenna, this is-"

"She knows who I am, Wyman," Olenna replied, drawing gnarled fingers away and sinking heavily into Wyman's own chair, her eyes not leaving Lenna's face. "Now sit down and don't speak unless you're spoken to. Your daughter and I have business to discuss."

Lenna almost smiled to see her father reprimanded like a child, to watch as he did as he was bid, sitting stiffly in a too-small chair on the side, thoroughly deposed in his own castle.

"Please sit, my dear," Olenna said, indicating Lenna's own chair with a bony finger. "I hear that it wasn't too long ago since you gave birth. It is an unpleasant burden. I don't recommend doing it more than once if you can help it."

On impulse, Lenna reached into the cradle and lifted Addy out, placing her in Olenna Tyrell's lap.

"What is it?" Olenna asked, hefting the baby up to look at her.

"A girl," Lenna replied softly. Her throat went tight. "Adalyn."

Olenna smiled, and Lenna thought how changeable she was, going from formidable to doting in the blink of an eye. The old woman's face softened as she pulled a face at the child, and Addy let out a chortle.

"Your mother would be pleased she was named for her," she replied, passing Addy back. "I was never one for babies myself, but she seems a fine one."

Lenna laid Addy back in her cradle, patting her chest and watching as she slipped asleep again.

"Now," Olenna said abruptly, "enough of the pleasantries, girl. We have far more important matters to discuss."

Lenna sat primly at her desk and waited. Olenna rolled her eyes and tsked.

"I'm to do all of the work then? Fine." She shifted and wove her fingers across her midsection. "The time for letting things in King's Landing work themselves out has come to an end."

"Joffrey is dead and your granddaughter is queen," Lenna said blandly. "I would think you are quite pleased."

"The realm is still at war," Olenna said. "The King is a good boy, but he's still listening to his mother. To Tywin. My attempts have not worked, and there is a further complication."

"Daenerys Targaryen?" Lenna asked.

"I wish," Olenna huffed. "I can't worry about a usurper right now. There are snakes in our own bed that have to be dealt with first."

"I don't understand you," Lenna replied. "What snakes?"

"Meddlesome priests," Olenna spat. "Faith Militant, or haven't you heard?"

Lenna shook her head, looking to her father. Wyman had leaned forward in his chair, hands on his knees.

"They've convinced the King and my own granddaughter that they wish to root out the corruption in the Faith," Olenna said drily. "But I know what they are. What he is."

"Who?"

"Calls himself the High Sparrow," Olenna replied. "Little man armored with self-righteousness. He thinks he's purging the world. All he's doing is shifting the power. And we cannot let him."

"If he's a man of faith-"

"I didn't take you for a fool," Olenna said sharply. "I'd heard you were pious, and I'd expect nothing less of a Manderly, but this is not the time to add a religious war to a political one. The Kingdoms would not survive it. He is gaining strength in the capital, he has far too much hold over the King. He must be stopped, hobbled."

"How?" Lenna replied. "The King-"

"The Throne is debt," Olenna replied. "The Sparrow has attempted to purchase it."

"But you've already said he's a priest-"

"A priest with deep coffers, it would seem," Olenna fired back. "But mine are deeper. And so are yours."

Lenna took a deep breath and leaned back. Addy mewled and Lenna instinctively reached down to place a hand on her little chest.

"What exactly do you have in mind?" Lenna asked, thinking about the missives that had passed her father's desk in the recent months, the fighting between the Northern lords and the Lannister armies. "Isn't the debt to the Lannisters?"

"Tywin wishes me to believe so," Olenna said wryly, a smile creating ripples in her parchment-like face. "But I know better. The Lannisters are bankrupt. They have been drawing on the Iron Bank for years to give the appearance of wealth, but their mines are no longer producing. Tywin is used to literally making money," Olenna went on, "but he's out of the raw materials."

Lenna felt the breath leave her body. "When? When did he run out?"

"Four, five years ago perhaps."

Lenna looked to her father briefly, thinking of that visit to Casterly Rock, of Tywin's strange behavior, like he was assessing her, priming her. He had been so very solicitous, and Lenna was almost sure that he'd wanted Tyrion to make her an offer. She strongly suspected that he would have had he not guessed what it was between her and Sandor that night.

And after- Lenna swallowed and tried not to think too hard about how Tywin's mind worked. It was a convoluted and dark place.

"He bid for her," Wyman said softly. "For Ser Jaime."

Lenna looked at her father. He had never spoken of such, though Jaime had. Wyman shrugged, haggard and weary. As far as he was concerned, it was Lenna's first hearing of it.

"That's surprising," Olenna replied. "Ser Jaime is a Kingsguard. I had rather predicted he'd want her married to the Imp."

"Tyrion tried," she replied hollowly, "but not for such mercenary reasons."

"Make no mistake, girl," Olenna said sharply. "He might even care for you, but Tyrion Lannister is still one of them. He does nothing without thinking of his own gain."

Lenna's heart cracked, the little piece that still loved them all shrinking.

"So what am I to do?" Lenna asked. "You certainly didn't come all this way to expose them to me."

"No," Olenna replied. "I came to bring you back to them. With me."

Lenna shook her head defiantly. "No. I cannot do that."

"Not forever, girl," Olenna replied. "But once I set these wheels in motion, I need someone that they will listen to. And you are perhaps the only other person in the Seven Kingdoms that they still trust other than themselves. It broke Cersei Lannister's heart when you were _absconded_ with, and she listens to no one. I have reason to believe that she would still listen to you."

"How?"

"She has written, has she not?" Olenna asked, thin eyebrows flicking so coyly that Lenna felt for a moment that her face had gone smooth again, a glimpse of a conniving and young Olenna Redwyne in her father's study.

"She did," Lenna owned. It had rocked her, Cersei's notes. Her grief. And Lenna knew that she had revealed that to no one else, save perhaps her twin. She took a deep breath, ready to accept.

"It is too dangerous," Wyman declared. "The child-"

"It is far more dangerous if she does not come," Olenna replied. She turned her ferocious regard back to Lenna alone. "You and I will buy this debt from the Iron Bank. Once we have our leverage, you will go with me and we will inform the Lannisters that their game is over. They will agree to my terms."

"What do you have in mind?" Lenna asked tightly, wondering how the Queen of Thorns could possibly make such a humbling palatable to the _Lannisters_.

"The North will be brought back into the Realm," Olenna said finally. "With Robb Stark named King in the North. A vassal state, but independent. The Northern lords will accept no less, I think."

Wyman nodded deeply, his eyes grave.

"The Faith Militant will be put down," she said. "They begin to sniff around Cersei and her brother, and she knows it. She wants them gone, so that Tommen and Margaery will not kneel to him as he wishes. I will not allow it, either. We will make her our ally even if she doesn't want to be."

"How can you convince her to trust you? Even from my mouth, she would not take to such easily."

"She has little choice," Olenna replied. "We all know Tommen is a bastard, and I can prove it if need be."

"How?" Lenna asked, flummoxed.

"There's an old book she's been looking for. Years of searching. I have it."

Lenna took a quick breath.

"You know the one I'm speaking of," Olenna said quietly. "I thought you might."

Lenna colored and looked down. "So you will humiliate Tommen." As wrong as it was that he sat the throne a Baratheon, Lenna felt for the boy. He had always been an innocent, sweet and forgiving and good.

"No." Lenna looked up in surprise. "If I do that, Margaery will lose her crown. Leave the boy on the throne. I don't care who his father is. I only care that we restore our Realm."

"What else?" Lenna asked, brow furrowing. "There must be more. What is in it for you? I do not believe you to be entirely altruistic, aunt."

Olenna smiled, at her gumption or the moniker she didn't know. "Shrewd young woman. Sansa Stark will marry my grandson."

"Ser Loras?" Lenna asked lightly. "I thought-"

"No," Olenna replied evenly. "My own Willas. She will be the Lady of Highgarden in time. We will unite the North and the Reach."

"We have a long memory," Lenna said, knowing the Northern lords would not like such a match.

"I do wish you Northerners would get over what happened a thousand bloody years ago," Olenna said. "It will be your death if you don't."

Lenna looked at her hands. Reunification. Selling Sansa to a stranger in the South. An independent North.

"What do we need to do?" Lenna asked, drawing a piece of parchment towards her, dipping her quill in her inkwell. "There isn't any time to waste, is there?"

A/N: Life is hard. I'll have the next bit up as soon as I may, but I'm swamped with it right now. Thanks for reading and reviewing. Remember, I believe in happy endings.


	56. Chapter 56

Lenna LVI

The gulls' cries echoed off the walls of the Red Keep, dread ricocheting in her blood. Standing on the ship's deck brought to many memories of her first arrival in the capital as a young girl. Her stomach had fizzed with nerves then, but now it felt as if she had exchanged her bowels for snakes. It had been a year since she'd left King's Landing, and she had thought then that she would never have reason to return. Now, the ruddy turrets of the holdfast rose above her again, the cold wind nipping at her cheeks as she soothed the babe in her arms.

It was a risk to bring Addy with her, but she would never have left her, not when she was still so small. Only four months old, and already a traveller. Lenna might have smiled at that if she wasn't so afraid. Not that she had much choice.

Olenna had planned everything before she even arrived in White Harbor, knowing that Lenna would not refuse her. How could she? Olenna had as effectively backed Lenna into a corner has she had the Lannisters themselves, and it was struggle not to resent her for it. A shudder like an eel made its way down Lenna's spine. It was hard to trust someone who viewed you as a gaming piece, who called upon the bond of blood in such a way. Lenna, certainly, could never imagine doing such a thing, even with the Realm at stake.

"Three days," Olenna assured her, still commanding Wyman Manderly's study as if it was her own. "You will be there for three days, then you leave again. I will not let them keep you, dear girl. Not this time."

This had made Lenna uneasy, to say the least, but even her father had agreed in the end, looking at her askance, his moustache drooping as he bid them farewell at the harbor dock. Olenna was too assurring, too placating for either of them to be drawn in. Lenna wondered if her aunt thought her simple, or perhaps simply naive. That the child was in her arms and not with a wet-nurse in White Harbor was a bone of fierce contention between the kinswoman. Olenna thought her niece was daft to even suggest such a thing, but Lenna refused to be parted from Addy. In the end, Lenna had won simply because she outlasted Olenna's patience.

The wind that brushed her cheeks as they pulled into the southern harbor was mild, almost as warm as summer. It stirred the curls that framed Addy's face and the child yawned, making Lenna smile. King's Landing did not feel the winter the way the North did, the only difference a slight muting of the brilliant skies, a crispness to the wind that hadn't been there in the long summer. This winter was going to last long years by all indications, and ire rose up in her that the North should struggle through deep snows while these soft, cruel people in the capital barely shivered with their light silk shawls draped about their shoulders, winter a mere tale made up to scare naughty children. But not hers. Addy had been born that first day of winter, a winter's child, the chill only making her snuggle a little more deeply into her mother's arms but not rousing her from her sleep.

She went below to prepare as she had that first time, only she was not so foolish to repeat her first mistake. She changed into a more suitable gown, a sober blue, and had her maid thread her gray ribbon through her hair. She suspected that she needed his strength today, though she was keenly aware of how unhappy, no, furious, he would be if he knew where she was and what she was about to do. That made her cheeks pink and her lips curl, and when she laid a kiss on her daughter's forehead, she went on deck steeled for whatever it was that would meet her.

She was glad she'd taken the time to make herself presentable. There was a cloaked figure waiting for them on the dock, a woman about Lenna's own age, a sloe-eyed beauty with a heart-shaped face. A group of guards surrounded her, spear-points flashing in the late morning light. Lenna knew who she was immediately, despite never having crossed paths with Margaery Tyrell, and even from a distance, she knew the other woman's eyes rested on her. Their gazes locked across the quay, and the gentle smile on her lips was enough to make the snakes in her stomach settle, still heavy but no longer writhing.

Margaery Tyrell was as beautiful as Lenna had always heard, and it was clear that they were quite fascinated with each other. The young queen's eyes were a vivid blue, and they did not leave Lenna's form, their expression shuttered. There was cunning in her sharp features, but there was also great kindness, and curiosity. She only looked away when Olenna made her first appearance, seeming to ignite when the old lady tottered down the gangway, wrapping her grandmother up in an embrace more suited to an excited child than to a queen. Lenna immediately liked her.

"Margaery, my dear," Olenna said, stepping to the side, impatient with her granddaughter's show of affection. "Your cousin, Helenna Manderly."

"My famous Northern relation," Margaery said as Lenna made a deep curtsey. Her knees were stiff, it had been so long since she'd made such a gesture. When she rose, Margaery had extended both of her hands, drawing Lenna close and dropping a kiss on each cheek. "The ones the ballads are written about. You will have to tell me how much truth is in them."

"Not now," Olenna said with a wave of her hand. "Foolish girls. More worried about spinning romances than saving your own skins."

Margaery looped her arm through Lenna's, much to her surprise, idly talking through the finer points of Olenna's proposition as they walked. Lenna did not know why this shocker her. It made perfect sense that the queen would be aware of exactly what her grandam had planned, but it did make Lenna wonder how far this web of theirs extended, and where exactly her place was supposed to be within it.

Olenna leaned heavy on her other arm as they made their way to Cersei's rooms, a runner sent ahead of them. The young queen would not accompany them into the lion's den. Her very presence would cripple them before they had a chance to do what they came to accomplish. Lenna wondered if her own being there would hurt them. She had no idea what kind of reaction her appearance would inspire after so long an absence, especially showing herself at Olenna's side.

She took a deep breath, forcing her feet to move one in front of the other. Lenna had dared to allow herself to believe that she would never have to walk these passageways again, and they felt foreign to her despite having been her home for so many years, nearly half her life. The beauty she'd once found in the intricate scrollwork was now gone, and she kept her eyes on her toes on the ruddy flagstones, measuring her breathes and her steps as her feet led her on the all-too familiar path through Maegor's Holdfast.

Cersei's study looked the same as it always had, though all but one of the windows was shuttered, casting it into gloom illuminated by ornate lamps. It was scarcely midday, but it felt as though the light had been chased away, save for the thick slab of sunlight coming through the lone window. Lenna went to it immediately, hugging herself tightly as she looked over the familiar view, while Olenna took a seat, head lolling as she dozed and waited. Arms wrapped around her torso, Lenna felt suffocated, desperate for a chill breeze.

Footsteps rang down the hall, and then the door clicked. Lenna turned with determination, her hands clasped before her stomach in a false show of ease. Cersei Lannister entered with her eyes cast on the floor, a look of great annoyance on her features. She seemed thinner, her cheeks more hollow, the bones of her face readily visible under her smooth skin. Yet, she was still golden and beautiful, and the small part of her heart that Lenna could not purge of them swelled with joy to see her well. Lenna had imagined horrible things in the wake of the Blackwater. Her dreams had shown her Cersei Lannister and her golden children bloody and beheaded, purpled with poison, and always, always dead.

The woman who approached her was not dead, but she looked as if she'd seen a lich rise from the grave. The dowager queen stopped mid-stride, eyes finding Lenna where she still stood at the casement, the wind at her back stirring the short curls about her own sharp cheeks. Cersei went ashen under honeyed skin, beryl-green eyes going glassy as she looked back at her in incomprehension. Cersei inhaled sharply like some spell had been broken, throwing a glance to Olenna, before whatever shock had stilled her disappeared and she took three rapid strides to Lenna, arms outstretched as she pulled Lenna into an embrace, face buried in her old friend's hair.

Her fingers dug like claws into Lenna's thin back, but she was warm. It surprised Lenna that Cersei Lannister felt the same as any other human in her arms, the queen's body, strong and upright, going slack in her own stunned grip. Lenna had wrapped her up in her arms without thinking, half-disgusted at her own pleasure in seeing Cersei Lannister again.

"Dear, dear Lenna," Cersei said brokenly, taking a step away, hard hands framing Lenna's face. The queen, nearly her equal in height, peered into her face as if seeking proof that it was not Lenna, that she was some imposter with a good likeness. Her fingers went slack, and then there were tears in her eyes. Lenna herself almost cried, her own tears rising in answer. How she hated how glad she was to see Cersei Lannister. "Wherever have you been?"

The queen's voice was breathy, like a wind in dry leaves, but it was also full, so much passing between them unspoken. Lenna trembled, taking one of Cersei's hands in her own and looking down, away, anywhere but at that searching and wounded and proprietary gaze.

"I am glad to see you, your grace," Lenna said in reply, opting not to address the question. "You look well."

Cersei barked out a mirthless laugh, and the wraith-woman was set aside, the queen again in her place. "Not so well as you. Your hair." The queen had laid a hand on Lenna's braid, and it was almost like taking a physical blow. Cersei, whether she meant to or not, severed the accord between them with that reminder of all that had transpired before her leaving. Lenna felt as if her heart had acquired a thin coat of ice. "I had not thought to see you again."

"Here I am," Lenna said quietly, and Cersei nodded.

"Yet you come with that one," she replied, her fingers busy with the end of Lenna's braid. There was a tremor to them that Lenna had never seen before, a nervousness. "I wonder at that."

"My aunt, you know," Lenna said in what she meant to be reassurance. "Can I get you a glass of wine?"

Cersei nodded, dropping her hands and folding them before her as she turned to Olenna, every inch a queen again. Lenna wondered if she had imagined that brittle vulnerability, if she'd conjured it with her own pathetic sympathy for this creature.

It was an eerie thing to pour out a measure of wine into one of Cersei Lannister's golden goblets again, and Lenna felt a bit like a ghost of her former self as she moved about the room. It was still so familiar to her, though something about the very stones had changed.

"Your father and brothers?" Olenna asked, breaking the delicate silence.

"Have you not heard?" Cersei asked, her face ancient as she crossed her arms. "My father is dead, killed by my brother."

It was not easy to render Olenna Tyrell speechless, but Cersei Lannister managed to do it. Even Lenna saw the change in the old woman, her papery skin going just a shade paler, old lips parting for a dry and almost imperceptible gasp.

"Ser Jaime?" Lenna breathed, not believing her ears, unable to make sense of what she had just heard.

"Tyrion," Cersei replied. "He killed my son, Lenna. And now he's killed Father."

Lenna shook her head. "Your grace, surely you do not believe Tyrion is capable-"

Cersei scoffed. "So what if he won his stupid trial. We all know he is guilty. Oberyn Martell had to stick his Dornish nose where it didn't belong."

"What trial?"

"By combat," Cersei replied. "Tyrion demanded it. Coward, making someone else do his fighting for him, just as always. Prince Oberyn volunteered as his champion. And won."

"Then he has been judged innocent by the gods," Lenna said firmly. "He did not kill your son, your grace. Surely, you can't believe-"

"He killed him," Cersei replied stonily. "You're not a mother, Lenna. You wouldn't understand. I _know_ that he killed Joffrey. Father suffered an apoplexy shortly after. The grief was just too great."

"Tyrion has killed no one," Lenna replied softly in relief. "But I am terribly sorry, your grace, your father-"

"Yes," Cersei said with a flick of a golden brow. "And now Tyrion is fled. Can't even face us like the man he claims to be."

The tight net that wound itself around Lenna's heart loosened slightly. Poor Tyrion, Lenna wanted to come to his defense, but the good will that the queen still bore her was not strong enough to weather it. The look on Cersei's face, though, was that of a hunting falcon, drawn and sharp. Lenna struggled to find something to say, and the door opened again, saving her.

"Lenna," Jaime Lannister breathed, taking quick strides just as his sister had, looking for all the world as if he was going to catch her up in his arms, too. He checked himself at the last minute, instead, grabbing her hand in his. Lenna noted the cold, stiff golden hand that hers rested on, Jaime's own warm fingers covering hers. "I almost didn't believe the messenger, but here you are. Safe, as I see, but how?"

His eyes were alight with questions, none of which Lenna could answer in his sister's hearing.

"Sit down, Lenna, we have much to discuss with your friends," Olenna said sharply. Lenna drew her hand away from Jaime's and did as she was bid, sitting in chair beside her aunt and feeling like a lap-dog. Jaime looked at her strangely, and she shook her head just enough to steal the suspicion out of his eyes. She was uneasy that Olenna Tyrell had held her own counsel for so long, her sharp eyes watching every flick and gesture of her niece's interactions with her former captors. A veil of understanding seemed to settle around her, and if Lenna was not mistaken, Olenna was pleased with what she saw.

"I will get straight to the point, your grace," Olenna said, steepling her hands as she so often did. "Though I am grieved over news of your Father's death, it only makes my business that much more imperative. By now, surely, you are aware of the state of the Crown's debts."

Cersei, halfway through pouring another glass of wine, faltered and the red liquid splashed the floor. "I don't see how that is any of your business."

"Your grace, I must heartily disagree with you. It is all of our business," Olenna replied. "Every last noble house, hedge-knight, and peasant. You are out of money, your grace, and every copper star your continue to borrow puts this realm and its people at risk."

Cersei opened her mouth to speak but Olenna silenced her with a raised hand.

"Don't bother with those empty words," she rasped. "Lannister's don't pay debts so much as demand they be forgiven. No longer. We know that your mines are no longer producing, and that the money which the Crown has been using for the last several years is not, in fact, lent by House Lannister, but rather the Iron Bank of Braavos."

Jaime's brow was drawn into darkness, his lips parted as he looked between Olenna and his sister.

"Is this true?" he asked, his face thunderous. "Why wouldn't you tell me-"

"It was none of your concern," Cersei rejoined, sipping disinterestedly from her goblet again. "You are Captain of the Kingsguard, not Master of Coin. You're not even the Lord of Casterly Rock."

Jaime slammed his jaw shut, a muscle twitching along the bone. Tension between the two of them rose thick and pulsating, so different from the

"Your grace," Lenna said soothingly, pitching her voice to just that place that always calmed Cersei in the past. "Lady Olenna means that she and I will buy this debt from the Iron Bank. As bonds, to be paid back in full, over time. And we shall forgive half of the accrued interest as a gesture of good will."

"He's coming for you, Cersei," Olenna said, a simple statement of fact. "He's already started sniffing, hasn't he? He knows about Tommen, about Joffrey and your girl. About your brother."

Jaime had flushed and then gone white, sitting back in his chair. He would not look up at Lenna.

"You are speaking treason, Lady Olenna," Cersei hissed through her teeth, her eyes narrowed as a snakes.

"Don't try and scare me, girl," Olenna replied. "I am too old to be frightened by a kitten the likes of you." Olenna held her gaze and it fairly crackled. "You will agree to our terms."

"She's right, Cersei," Jaime said from the window. He'd risen once the spitting had begun, going to the window and leaning against the casement as he looked onto the sea. "He will find a way to root us out if he can."

"Buying our debt will not stop him," Cersei hissed, the admission costing her. "It will just enslave us to two- no, three- masters."

"No," Lenna breathed. "It won't. He needs proof. And he won't have any."

"Then why are we worried?" Cersei hurled back, rounding on Lenna with a cat's eyes. "I always thought you were so intelligent, Lenna. Perhaps we have given you more credit than you deserve."

Bile rose in her gullet. She was well-aware of what she was about to do, of what Olenna was doing.

"There is a book," Lenna said quietly. "I came to you about it many years ago."

Cersei paused and looked at her, as if taking her measure. Lenna forced herself to hold her gaze, feeling so like the girl who had been marched into her solar so many years ago. She thought back to what she had did then, how she had steeled herself, her mother's voice in her head, a stranger's smile giving her just enough strength to tip her chin up.

"Are you threatening me?" Cersei asked, laughter in her voice. "Lenna, how you've changed. You were always above such games."

"This is no game," Lenna replied softly, cooly. "But you are right, I have changed. I have always been your friend, despite-" her voice failed her, throat choking. "I have always loved you, your grace. I would not hurt you, not willingly. This book is not mine to give, and I do not know where it is. Only that it still exists."

"Too much credit," Cersei bit out. "I don't have to do anything. I'm the queen." She was pacing now, a caged lioness, her hair about her shoulders in a solid sheet of gold.

"All due respect, but no, you are not," Olenna said. "I only came to you first because I can see you losing your temper and ruining our chances. Margaery and Tommen will do as I say, but it is time to put away your claws, Cersei. The Realm is at stake."

"If you don't agree, your grace," Lenna said. "The Realm will cease to be. Then there will be nothing for you, or anyone, to be queen of."

Cersei stopped in her walking. "What a ludicrous idea. The Realm will not simply disappear because I do not allow you to hold my family hostage."

"Is the idea that ludicrous? The North has sufficient coin and power to take back what is theirs," Olenna replied. "And I mean to help them if needed. Robb Stark is not dead, and you well know it. His banners have gathered, and they will retake Winterfell from the Boltons within the month. Walder Frey's forces are weakened. His sons are dead."

"He has many sons," Cersei said listlessly.

"They are your men," Olenna said evenly. "Don't you care that they will fall? After all, you cannot buy more, now. And if the North gains its independence, what then is to stop Stannis Baratheon from doing the same with the Stormlands? It would give him a foothold, to be a king in his own country. Then the Reach, and the Martell's down in Dorne have always continued to style themselves as princes, who is the say they won't aspire to become kings?"

"The Martells are our allies."

"You shit yourself at the idea, and we both know it. They have your girl. Could make her a princess, could do to her what you did to Sansa Stark, use her as a pawn, a royal guest with a guard and a bolt on her door. If the kingdoms splinter, we lose our supremacy. What sets us apart from Essos? Hm? It isn't that we're richer, or smarter, or better. We are stronger. United. One kingdom, one crown. Allow that to fall apart, Cersei Lannister, and you'll have nothing but Casterly Rock, empty mines, and a pack of enemies baying for your blood for letting it come to this."

"It is not my fault-"

"This was not a problem before Robert died. War was an unpleasant memory, beginning to become a story. But your father loved war. Saw profit in it. But he lost control of it, didn't he? He didn't count on anyone being as clever as he was, or as rich. And in the end, it wasn't about being clever or rich, but who had the support and the will to outlast it. Robb Stark survived, your grace. And so did his armies. They may have been unsure of what they were fighting for before, but make no mistake- they know exactly what they are fighting for now."

Cersei went red, her neck tight, almost like she was going to burst from her own skin. Lenna had never seen that kind of desperation, not counting the night of the Blackwater.

"I beg you, your grace," Lenna said quietly. "I beg you. Listen to her. This proposal will bring the Seven Kingdoms back together. It will keep Tommen on the throne. It will bring peace to our Realm so that we may prosper again." Lenna took a deep breath, wishing she was not on such uneven footing. "The Crown alone must wield the power in the Seven Kingdoms. As long as the throne is indebted, that power is compromised. Faith in the Crown has been damaged. The situation in the North, King Joffrey-" Cersei's eyes flared at the mention of her son. Lenna bit her tongue, weighing her next words. "We are offering a solution, a mutually beneficial one. Let it end, your grace. If you do not, these whispers from the East-"

"You cannot tell me that you believe these rumors about the damn Targaryen girl."

"I do believe them, your grace," Lenna replied. "We would be foolish not to. And we know how the Iron Bank will act if we do not settle the Crown's debt."

"And they have already come calling, have they not?" Olenna asked. Cersei went gray. "I thought so. How much did they ask for? Hm? A tenth? That's the usual starting point, isn't it, Lenna?"

"Aye," Lenna replied. "That is quite usual."

"And then it will increase steadily. I have it on good authority that Stannis Baratheon has already achieved his purpose and gained a new line of credit from them. I wonder if they would do such a thing if they really believed he couldn't lose?"

Jaime rose abruptly, the legs of his chair scraping across the floor.

"How many enemies would you have them finance? Stannis does, after all have the better claim to the throne."

"Tommen is the king."

"Right now. And I want to keep him that way," Olenna said icily. "Believe it or not, Cersei Lannister, we are family now. As such, I intend to ensure that my granddaughter keeps her crown, and that means we pay the Iron Bank. Stannis Baratheon or Daenerys Targaryen, take your pick, hells, choose both- when the Iron Bank starts funneling them money, you know that you're in trouble, and here's the cold truth, my dear. They _are_."

"She's right," Jaime said quietly from the window. "Listen to her, Cersei."

"You would hobble our House, brother?"

"Lannisters always pay their debts one way or another, sister. I'd rather it not be with my blood. Or yours, for that matter. Lenna," he said, looking to her with the same doom as a drowning man, "do you truly believe this is the best way."

"Who would you rather be your banker, Ser Jaime? The Iron Bank of Braavos or your own lords? Who is more forgiving? No matter where we are in this mess, we are all related and bound to each other in some way by honor or blood."

Jaime looked at Lenna a long time, his handsome face grave, the silver in his shorn hair catching the buttery sunlight from the window. His sister did not speak again, but she cocked an eyebrow and stood waiting. Olenna made a quick inhalation as if to speak again, but Cersei silenced her with a raised finger.

"Allow the North to rejoin the Realm," Lenna said in a rush, "as a vassal state. The Northern lords will not kneel to the Iron Throne again, not as they have in the past. Historically, they have governed themselves and still been members of the commonwealth. Robb Stark has already been declared the King in the North, and they will keep him. But he would ally if given the chance, bring the North under the mantle of the Seven Kingdoms. His father was Hand of the King, a loyal and avid supporter of your husband. Robb is proud, but he is just, like Lord Eddard was. He will keep his end of the bargain, open trade, supply troops if necessary, all that the Starks and their bannermen did before, only they would govern themselves within their own borders."

"You have spoken with him?"

"I have not," Lenna replied. "I thought it best not to bring such a proposal until the terms were set. It actually benefits you, your grace, for me to do so."

"Taxes?" Cersei asked shortly.

"Of course. Within reason," Lenna replied cautiously. "And they will buy bonds against the Crown's debt as well, in good faith. The debt itself will be spread around."

Cersei's throat was working, and Lenna knew she was fighting against herself.

"You cannot make this go away, your grace," Lenna replied staunchly. "Either we open the debt for purchase and take the power from the Iron Bank, or you will fall in the process. We all will. And I, like Lady Olenna, would rather Tommen sit the throne than Stannis Baratheon or Daenerys Targaryen. But those, your grace, are the only options available to us."

"You said initially that Houses Tyrell and Manderly will buy it," the queen said tonelessly. "And forgive half the interest."

"We will buy the majority share," Olenna replied. "A third each. The rest will be opened up to the other Houses."

"Blackmail," Cersei growled.

"Insurance," Olenna replied. "And a reminder that it was the people and the families of this Realm that put your husband upon that throne to begin with, and not the gods themselves. You have forgotten, Cersei Lannister, that it took the smallfolk and the vassals to support Robert's claim, to depose a king, a dynasty. And we remember what it took, and we could do it again."

There it was. The threat that Lenna was afraid of, that once spoken it would not be forgotten. Instead of enraging Cersei, though, it instead seemed to subdue her.

"What of the Faith Militant, then?"

"Pull out their teeth. Clip their claws," Olenna replied. "The people love my granddaughter already. Use her, follow her. Let her be queen. The people must turn back to the Crown rather than looking to the Sparrow and his followers."

"How?" Cersei asked incredulously. "You've already said we cannot pay for more men."

"Not by force," Lenna replied. "You cannot make them love you by decree. Queen Margaery will allocate some spending to aid the poor," Lenna said shortly. "Hospitals, supplies, food. There is no reason why the inhabitants of the richest city in the Seven Kingdoms should live in such squalor. This High Sparrow, he gains strength through their misery, does he not? The riots," she said softly, and Cersei's gaze met hers without rancor. "Remember that day, when the people of your own city rose against you in the streets." They had never discussed that day, Cersei had never asked about the cut on her cheek, but now there was a mute, old horror in the queen's green eyes. "They did it once, your grace, and they are certainly capable of doing it again. The raiding in the Riverlands must end. People must be able to return to their lands, their homes, without fear of reprisal. You cannot threaten people into loving you, smallfolk or noble."

She felt like they stood looking at each other forever, both barely breathing. Cersei had never looked harder, colder, than she did then.

"Your grace," Lenna said softly. "You told me, many years ago, that we women are to be weavers of peace. Look about you. Lady Olenna, and you, and I, and queen Margaery- we have the ability to at least try and to stitch them Realm back together. I will go away, and you will never have to see me again, but please. Your grace. We must do this. Do you want to lose more than what you already have? You have lost so much, your grace. We all have."

Cersei looked between Lenna and her brother, ignoring Olenna Tyrell. The old woman sat still as an owl, watching the whole of it play before her like a queen commanding a performance. Lenna didn't like it, but she had nothing better to offer.

"Call the council," Cersei said, and without another word or glance at Lenna, she left the room, hands clenched at her sides. Jaime made to follow her, but he pulled up short at the door. He stopped, turning back to Lenna, and this time he did pull her to him.

"I wish you were far from here, Lenna," he muttered into her hair, laying a hard kiss on her forehead, like a brother.

Lenna looked up into his handsome face, the feeling of dread in her stomach roiling like a hurricane.

"She is not herself," Jaime said. "Or perhaps, she is and I'm just now seeing her for what she is. She will not take this easily."

"She is not the queen," Olenna said stiffly from her seat. Her gnarled hand flexed on the blackthorn cane she carried. "Just the dowager. That we came to her first was a mere precaution. My granddaughter will make sure that what needs to happen will come to pass. She is the queen, even if your sister has never accepted it. That is the problem with you all, you don't know when to stop. To step away."

"You tell us to step away when it is you who have contrived all of this," Jaime spat. Olenna looked at him tartly, her lips pursed. Even Lenna's breast flared in anger at her nonchalant expression.

"Contrived?" Olenna said blandly. "Do you really think, boy, that I want to spend my family's fortune on wiping your family's debt clean? That I have worked my entire life to build House Tyrell into what it now is to see my earnings frittered away on your father's foolishness?" Olenna rose, and the infuriating humor faded from her eyes, turning into something hard and fatal, not at all unlike Tywin Lannister's reptilian glare. "Do you imagine that I enjoyed using your young friend here, my own kinswoman? Do you think she wanted to do this? She still loves your ilk, for whatever reason. I don't know what spell you wrought over her in this city, but she has done nothing but defend your hides since the beginning. A good, but foolish creature. Smart but too soft. I am not too soft. This has nothing to do with you, young man, but I will not pretend that my own interests are not my driver. My granddaughter is the queen. Her children will sit the Iron Throne."

Jaime made a sound of protest, but Olenna pounced on him like a hawk, clucking her tongue at him like he was an errant boy.

"Careful, Ser Jaime," she warned, a smirk twisting her still graceful lip. "Or you will reveal more than you would want me to know. Or will you merely confirm what I already do?" He did not speak, drawing his lips closed and staring at her with flared nostrils. "I would be very careful, if I were you. What is said cannot be unsaid."

Jaime turned again to Lenna, resting his fingers against her wrist. "Lenna. You've always been our friend-"

"I still am, Jaime," she said quietly. "This is the only way. You must know that the longer this foolishness continues the worse it will be. We cannot be fighting amongst ourselves. It has to end."

"I know," he said after a long silence. "I know that. I just wish you were not involved. My sister- she has had her heart so broken I do not know if there is any of it left."

"Time has been cruel," Lenna said softly, and it hung heavy between them. For the briefest moment, Lenna remembered how they had been, and a wash of sadness so cold and deep ran over her that she felt like to drown. She could not bear to look at him, instead glancing about the room itself, but it brought no comfort. All she could do was remember how they had all sat in that very study together, Lenna just inside the circle of their light, Jaime and Cersei, sometimes even Tyrion and Tywin baiting each other and debating, while she sat listening, she and her enormous shadow, ever watchful in the corner.

Part of Lenna did believe in ghosts, but not of the living, but it seemed to her that she saw Cersei in that room again, standing in the window, but in the next moment she was gone, nothing but a fall, a flash, of bright hair and scarlet.

"Make my apologies to her," Lenna said quietly. "I do not know why, but I cannot bear the thought of her thinking ill of me. After all she has done-"

"I know," Jaime said thickly. "I meant what I said, Lenna. I will repay-"

She shook her head, throat thick and not wishing for Olenna Tyrell to hear another word pass between them.

She smiled tightly when he nodded and bent over her hand, so reminiscent of their last parting as he turned, leaving her alone with her aunt. Lenna swiped away the tears from her eyes, stubborn things that had finally made an appearance though they had threatened to choke her the whole interview.

"That went far better than I ever imagined," Olenna said with an air of smug self-satisfaction. "I expected it would take more than half an hour's bickering to bring Cersei over." Lenna looked back at her numbly, feeling as if she had been peeled from the inside out and left open and empty on the floor.

"Aye," she murmured, running her fingers over her lips to assure herself that she was still standing.

"Are you sure you're not a witch, my dear?" Olenna asked, her tone and eyes completely serious. Lenna's mouth dropped open in alarm and denial, but then Olenna batted the idea away like a gnat buzzing around her veil. "Of course not. How silly of me. Only, how they do as you bid them."

Three days turned into three weeks, and in the space of that time, Lenna did not see Cersei again and it grieved her. Torn between self-hatred and mourning, she managed to establish a routine which brought her peace, going to the Sept early in the mornings, even though she no longer felt that her prayers were heard. She wondered if they ever were, but it allowed her a bit of time to collect herself before attending the required meetings and appointments as she and Olenna prepared the bid to the Iron Bank. As much as this trip had cost her, she believed, in her depth, that is was the right thing to do. Olenna Tyrell was grasping and conniving, but she was also right. If anything could bring her comfort, in success or futile failure, it would be the knowledge that she had at least tried.

Most evenings she escaped her aunt, and she sat in the garden with Addy at her side, reviewing her notes and taking a much-needed glass of wine. Being in the Red Keep flayed her news to bleeding, each step in the castle like fleeing specters. A particular one, a shadow, that she expected to see at her heels at every turn. A shadow she was terribly disappointed did not manifest in flesh, each moment she was fooled by some movement in the corner of her eye, some invisible footfall another stab beneath her ribs.

To anyone who knew her, Lenna Manderly was bearing up, but she was certain that she was bleeding internally, a little rivulet of herself that was draining her dry. It had begun a year an a half ago, and only the smiles of her child, her coos and cuddles stanched the flow, and even then, only temporarily.

"She's yours, I take it?"

Lenna set the pen down with a measured calmness that she did not feel, looking up to find Jaime Lannister standing still as column in her garden, Tyrion's old sellsword at his right elbow. Bronn was chewing the inside of his cheek, a cocky brow raised in inquiry, but Jaime remained motionless, intently looking at the babe at her feet. His green eyes seemed darker, like they'd lost their brightness, but they were guileless. _Perhaps he is bleeding, too_. There was no judgment in his regard, no censure or malice, but perhaps there was a touch of wistfulness. He was still, his full attention on the baby, but then he looked at her sharply with a hint of a smile about his mouth and a glimmer of the man he'd once been. "May I?"

"Aye, of course," Lenna replied with her own small smile, stooping to scoop the baby up in her arms. She rose, coming to Jaime and presented her daughter to him, watching in vague pleasure when his face relaxed and his lips parted, the odd sadness in his eyes reminding her of how he would often look at the royal children, Myrcella in particular. He struggled only a moment to hold her in one arm, and Lenna saw in him something unexpected and tragic.

"How old?" he asked, gently bouncing her against his shoulder. Addy looked up at him curiously, blowing bubbles with her delicate little mouth.

"Nearly six months now," she replied, smiling in spite of herself. "She's growing quite big."

"I'd expect as much, given her sire. What is her name?" he asked lightly, his eyes carefully on the child. Lenna suspected that she knew what he was really asking, taking a deep breath before she told him.

"Adalyn Clegane," Lenna answered firmly. Jaime turned that inscrutable gaze on her and nodded in acceptance.

"I don't know how, or why, and doubt I ever will," he replied softly. "He will always have my gratitude, for what happened on the road. For seeing you safe as he promised."

"He was always better and more honorable than you all gave him credit," Lenna said lowly, two warm circles of color in her pale cheek. Jaime looked faintly ashamed.

"Fucking hells," Bronn murmured in admiration, and Lenna was intrigued to see the hard man so enraptured by a babe. For all he stood apart from them, Bronn was looking at her daughter with that strange tenderness she had once had for babes that weren't her own, as if they were from a separate world, still unblemished. She supposed that Addy was just that, in comparison to the three of them. Bronn looked back into Lenna's face with a bit of a leer on his impertinent visage, breaking the spell. "That ugly cunt didn't get this, did he?"

Lenna bit her lip to keep from laughing. Or crying. She wasn't sure which, so she settled for blushing thoroughly and answering him as best she could.

"He did. Though I wish he had listened to you sooner than he did."

Bronn grinned at that. "Still wished I'd done it myself, stolen you," he said. "Where's he hiding, anyway?"

"I don't know," Lenna replied. "I haven't heard from him in...quite some time."

"He left you?" Bronn's expression had undergone quite a transformation, from indulgence to anger, his neck reddening beneath the close-cropped beard and his eyes hard as lead. "After all that damn mooning, riding through a warzone, and he fucking left you?"

How often had she asked herself the same thing? She had been so angry, so sad, but she understood now. He had left for the same reason she could not leave Addy. He could not protect them at home, not in the way he felt they needed, no more than she could accept that the safest place for the child was away from her. It was a contrast that she'd spent considerable agony examining, that his duty and hers were so strangely at odds.

"He had little choice," she replied quietly and knowing it to be true. "You'd have done the same. He will come back."

The two men exchanged a skeptical look, and at least Jaime had the grace to look contrite when he saw Lenna's furrowed brow and hollow cheeks.

"If he doesn't come back, I'd still have you," Bronn said with a sniff, always the rake, and Lenna was, for once, grateful to him for the poor attempt at humor.

"He will," she said quietly. She opened her arms to take the baby back. Jaime let Addy go a little regretfully, looking down into the sweet face.

"She takes after you," he said quietly.

"Thank the gods for that," Bronn muttered.

Jaime clenched his jaw. Clearly, no one had succeeded in checking the sellsword's cheek.

"Is she going to Braavos, too, then?" Jaime asked, his left hand sitting awkwardly on the hilt of his sword, the lines around his squinted eyes deeper in the waning light.

Lenna took a deep breath. She'd done a good job of forgetting that her stay in King's Landing, already extended from three days into three weeks, was now to be further continued with a sea journey to Essos. It had never been part of the original plan, at least not her plan, though she suspected that it had been Olenna's aim since the start. Lenna had brought papers authorizing her to act as her father's agent, and she should have seen that for what it was at the time. She was quite sure her father had known that she wouldn't be gone a mere three weeks or a month when she had set foot on Olenna's ship, and she was glad that she herself had not. Otherwise, she would have never boarded, and by this time she realized just how imperative it was that she complete this work.

"She goes where I go," she replied at last, laying a kiss on her forehead. "I will not leave her behind."

"Cersei could never bear it, either," Jaime said. Lenna looked at him sharply. "Surprising, no? But the truth. Always had to have the children close to her, even though she never quite knew how to love them, not properly. Not like you do." His hand ghosted across Addy's dark curls, the square lines of his fingers strong. "When will you leave?"

"Three days' time," she said. "And then I am go back to White Harbor."

Jaime pressed his lips together and nodded. "To Lady Sansa."

Addy decided to grab her nose at that moment, and Lenna nearly dropped her.

"So you know," she said quietly. "I suspected as much.

"Yes," Jaime replied, a queer tightness around his eyes. "I hope she is safe." There was a bright splash of color across his cheeks.

"They both are," she replied quietly.

He smiled tightly. "Cersei will forgive you. With time."

"I doubt I shall ever see her again," Lenna said, a little sadly. "I cannot imagine what she would have to say to me."

"She loves you," Jaime said resolutely. "And she does not know how to stop. Just as you do not, though you should have stopped caring about us long ago. If you had-"

"It doesn't bear speaking," she protested, a stone growing in her chest, or perhaps it was ice.

"No," Jaime said quietly. "But this will not be our last meeting, dear Lenna."

"I should hope not," she replied. "That would make me very sad indeed."

His eyes narrowed and he bent over her hand, pressing it warmly between fingers and lips. "Be well."

"And you."

He nodded once, passing a thumb over Addy's forehead and turned on his heel. Bronn took a step closer, pushing down the baby's swaddling clothes to look at her face.

"She got lucky," he said with both eyebrows raised. "She'll take after her pretty mother. What a pity it would be if she didn't." He looked her dead in the face, the most candid expression in his dark eyes she had ever seen. "He isn't dead, my lady. There's nothing in seven hells that could drag him from you. Not after what he did. What you both did."

With a ferocious, unspeakable feeling, Lenna threw her arm around his neck and kissed the sellsword forcefully on the cheek. He looked mildly stunned when she stepped back, his lips twitching. Her hand had come to rest on his shoulder, and he reached up to press it with his own calloused fingers before he took his leave, the cocky gait subdued into a canter as he followed a stoop-shouldered Jaime Lannister out of her garden. She stood for a while after with the baby, looking in the direction they had gone, strangely stirred by their sudden appearance and mourning the inevitability of parting.

The trip to Braavos was in itself uneventful, the preparations in King's Landing having been undertaken with utmost care and precision. Mace Tyrell went with them, and Lenna enjoyed his company, wondering how Olenna could have begotten such a genial and guileless son. He must be a great disappointment, she thought with good humor.

The transfer and payment took quite a bit longer than she wished, and she'd have been gone from White Harbor for nearly four months before she made it back. The days in the bank were long, but Lenna enjoyed an anonymity in the city that she didn't have in King's Landing or at home. She went wandering more than she should, Addy in tow, just another woman out with her child. She found puppet shows for them to watch, though Addy quickly lost interest, still being too young for such things, and bought steaming cups of tea near street musicians, just to have a change of pace. It was intoxicating to simply enjoy the sunlight, which she did unreservedly until guilt inevitably reached out for her with cold hands.

There were so many people, from so many places, and Lenna felt like some drab sparrow among the riotous colors and chattering crowds. Her Braavosi, she found, was quite thickly accented, but the people were kind when she spoke to them, correcting her gently here and there, for which she was grateful. By the week's end, she was not stumbling through her sentences as badly, finding words for things she didn't realize that she even knew, and even able to barter with some of the merchants. It was a small thread of pleasure.

Not that there weren't pockets of Westerosi. She stumbled upon one on a bright afternoon, a group of players enacting a very tasteless rendition of the wars. She stayed only because she believed there was value in understanding other facets of the same issue, but it turned her stomach to see such callous treatment of her own country's troubles.

She was walking away, back toward their lodgings, when a girl passed her, a cockle seller, and something about her struck Lenna as familiar. The girl was pug-faced, small and round-shouldered, her thin hair done up in two hard little buns on either side of her head. The child's eyes met hers and went wide.

Ned Stark's eyes.

The girl kept walking, and Lenna pushed through the crowd to reverse her course, the girl hurrying away from her.

"Arya," she cried out, hoisting Addy in her arms. "Arya Stark."

The girl stiffened, but she did not stop. Lenna continued to chase her, calling after her.

"Arya," she tried again. "I know that's you."

The girl did stop this time, and when Lenna caught a glimpse of her face, there were tears streaming down it, thick and shining in the sun.

"Arya," she said, reaching out to grasp her shoulder. "It's me. It's Lenna."

"You're mistaken, m'lady," the girl replied, hiding her face, her voice like broken stones. "I'm not who you think I am."

"Arya, I'm not going to hurt you-" she insisted, but the girl took a step back.

"Leave me be," the girl cried out, pushing blindly through the crowd and leaving Lenna stunned and confused and bereft, wondering if she had indeed made some mistake, if she was conjuring ghosts again.

There was no mistake a few days later when the clatter rose in the hall. She was packing her trunk, their business at last concluded. She had even found it in herself to buy presents for her nieces, brightly colored silks such as she had never seen, even in King's Landing, when the front door burst open and a small, ragged figure came into the entry, a manservant on her heels.

Lenna came down the stairs in a hurry, and the girl looked up at her. Gray eyes did not leave her face as the girl ran to her, wrapping her arms around Lenna's middle and burying her face in her breast.

"I'm so sorry," the girl said, over and over again. "I'm sorry. I tried. I just want to go home. Please, just take me home."

Lenna ran her hand over Arya Stark's head and shushed her.

"Of course," she whispered. "Let's go home."

Sandor LVI

The darkness was warm, like swimming in a hot spring, and it burbled and eddied about him like a deep-water current, dragging him down and then buoying him up, soundless and soothing. Weightless, painless, nothing at all.

It bore him along, content and faded, and then there was a flash of blue, then white, and then a bright blinding of light and suffocating pain.

A/N: This was a long one, but the pieces are moving into place on the board. It's not perfect, but I wanted to get it up before I lost my courage. I told you, I believe in happy endings. Hope to have the next bit up in the next week or so.


	57. Chapter 57

Lenna LVII

"Lenna?"

She looked up from her writing, over the rim of the spectacles that perched at the end of her nose. They were almost identical to the ones she had pilfered from Tyrion Lannister so many years ago, but these days, she needed them more and more.

Wynna was hovering in the doorway, her pale face drawn, blue eyes large and full of concern as she hesitated at the threshold.

"Is it Papa?" Lenna asked, taking off the glass, letting them dangle from her hand. Wynna shook her head, holding out a raven-borne scroll.

"This came. For you."

Lenna pushed herself away from the desk. In the several months since she had returned from Braavos, Lenna had commandeered her father's study. He didn't need it. He was lying in his bed, and had been since before her ship had sailed into White Harbor, rheumy old eyes staring listlessly at the canopy of his bed.

"What is the seal?" she asked, her voice choked.

Wynna took a deep breath. "It is a wolf this time."

 _A wolf and not a lion_ , she thought with perverse relief. She still kept the missive from Tyrion Lannister in her drawer, unanswered. His plea for aid, his case for a new Targaryen queen, had left Lenna shaken and almost broken, questioning everything she knew. She had left it neglected for some months since.

A wolf she could deal with.

The wind that borne she and Arya Stark back from Essos had been ill-omened. It was the only explanation that Lenna could accept, for what she found when she made it home was so much worse than she could have dreamed. Never in her wildest imaginings could she have concocted such a nightmare, and it had begin as soon as the Stark girl had wrapped her thin little arms around her and begged to come home.

Arya Stark was little more than an urchin when she dashed into Lenna's lodgings on the day of her departure, half-feral and wild-eyed. Lenna never did get the full story out of her, the girl jabbering on about no one and faceless men. It had scared Lenna, someone who had always placed absolute faith in the gods but who was troubled by the idea that such wraith-like people could walk among them.

But it wasn't the girl's tale of Braavos and the Many-Faced god that had set the streak of gray in her dark hair, it was the girl's account of the Riverlands, her presence at the Twins and what came after.

 _No,_ she thought woodenly. _I would know if it was true_.

The girl had told her of a the long, winding journey through the wilderness on her own husband's saddlebow, and at last of a battle that made Lenna feel as though she had hardened from the inside, only her organs left soft and throbbing.

The Mountain and the Hound. Arya had sobbed as she told the story, how Sandor had asked her to kill him. Both his legs broken, the child had said, and so covered in gore that she couldn't even make out his face.

"He was already sick," the girl whispered. "He'd gotten bitten, and it went rancid. I tried to help, I burned-"

"He let you burn him?" Lenna had asked, startled.

The girl nodded, and her face crumpled up. She was sitting on a coil of rope on the deck of the little ship, her arms wrapped so tightly about her knees that the points of her elbows stretched the fabric of her shirt until it was pale at the joint.

"I didn't do a good enough job," she said with a burbling cry, spittle on her lip. "He was weaker. He tried to send me away, gave me his horse, but I couldn't leave him."

Lenna had struggled to keep her breathing steady. "Go on."

"I found him...after," she said. "He knew he wasn't going to walk away. He _couldn't_. He wanted me to stab him in the heart."

 _To slip the knife between his ribs_ , Lenna thought dully, her brain clouding over in pain.

"Did you?" she asked woodenly, as if from a distance.

The girl shook her head violently and wiped her hand across her nose. "I couldn't."

"And then?"

"I gave him your handkerchief," Arya said, her gray eyes red with weeping. "With a bit of your hair in it."

Lenna had looked away, clenching here eyes and her jaw against the grief that was rising like a cresting river. "So you know."

Arya nodded jerkily. "And that's your little girl."

Lenna nodded.

"He didn't know." The girl's eyes were wide, almost consoling. Lenna wanted to reach out to her, to wrap her in comfort, but she couldn't.

She shook her head, looking down at the sleeping child. "No, he doesn't."

"Lenna," Arya said, her face reddening as she struggled to speak the words. "He's dead."

"No," Lenna had whispered, a strange, enduring twist to her lip, an unfailing glint in her eye. "I don't believe you, Arya Stark."

"I saw," the girl cried out. "I stayed with him as long as I could. I had to go, I heard something in the bracken, but he died. He couldn't-"

"He wouldn't," Lenna had said, her brows contracting and going dark with enough violence that Arya turned her head, biting her lip and shaking like an aspen in winter.

They hadn't spoken of it at all after that, though Lenna did not miss the strange looks that the child cast her, as if she had gone a little mad. Perhaps she had. She felt herself slipping away, the rational part of herself believing the child, that he was dead, and indulging herself in this strange and stubborn denial.

It was a relief to send the child into the west with an escort at the earliest convenience. Away from the New Castle, so far away in Winterfell, Lenna could imagine that they'd never met again, never spoken, that the nightmares that haunted her each night were some figment of her imagination and not conjured from some truth of Sandor laying in his own blood, begging for death, for escape.

 _From her_.

She had not been able to deny, however, the devastation at home. The two faces that greeted her in the courtyard of the New Castle were gray as the flagstones, and just as wet in the afternoon rain.

Winterfell had been retaken in her absence only to be attacked again by Stannis Baratheon. Whilst she was gone, Sansa had gone to her brother to take up her mother's mantle and serve as the lady in the North for widowed King Robb. Lenna quailed to hear that the girl had been there when the castle was beset by Stannis' armies. Robb had refused to bend the knee, just as they had from the beginning. Stannis had attacked, some strange Red Woman in his camp making signs and burning offerings. Baratheon had sacrificed his own child, but he'd ultimately failed to take the castle, the Stark forces bedraggled but victorious.

Only, Robb Stark, hardly healed from his ordeal at the Twins, had fallen on the field. As had her own brothers, Wendel and Wylis both, and she knew it as soon as she saw Wynna's haggard face and Wylla's blonde hair. She'd stopped dyeing it, and the roots were yellow as lemons, the green like a creeping algae, and both their faces were gaunt and grey.

The New Castle that she and Arya Stark found was far different from the one that she had left. Sansa was Lady of Winterfell now, the Wardeness of the North. Her other brother, the bastard Jon Snow, driven out by the men of the Wall, had come to her aid. Together, they were slowly rebuilding the alliances and ties between the Northmen. Her own father, who would have been such an aid in the endeavor, however, was still staring listlessly at the canopy of his own bed, the mossy eyes rheumy and disoriented, his mouth slack.

He'd suffered a stroke, they said, after learning of the deaths of both his sons. Wylis, whom Lenna had not seen since her ill-fated voyage north with Sandor so many years before, and Wendel, ever her friend and ally. It seemed impossible to her that they were dead, though she had seen both of their tombs in the crypt. The Sept of the Snows had become her particular haunt since her return from the east, and the servants knew that if they couldn't find their lady, they need only send a messenger to her mother's effigy, or her brothers', and she would come back with haste.

Lenna sighed as she looked at Wynna and the scroll in her hand. It was small, but Lenna's experience with such messages was such that she only expected earth-shattering news. The shorter the missive, the more disruptive it was.

When Wynna slipped the scroll into her hand, she shuddered, put in mind of the raven that bore her mother's death, but she set her teeth and pursed her lips, flicking open the waxen wolf with determination. Her eyes darted across the message and she sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose as she took a moment for herself.

The baby stirred, and Lenna rested her fingertips against the little one's chest, reassured by the rise of her ribs, the strong beat of the growing heart.

"I am summoned," she said gravely, handing the scroll back to Wynna. "Lady Sansa requests I attend her in Winterfell."

"But-"

"You are more than capable of running the city, Wynna," Lenna replied, returning to her papers. "I have not been ignorant of your help while I was gone, and do not pretend now that you do not know what to do."

Wynna took the scroll reluctantly, reading it quickly before folding her hands before her, knuckles tight and white.

"So you will go then?"

"What choice do I have?" Lenna asked. _You brokered this peace,_ she thought, _and you will see to its welfare._

Wynna did not immediately reply, and for the briefest, clearest moment, Lenna saw her own mother standing before her. Then, Wynna raised her great blue eyes, and Lenna was breathless.

"Do as you must, aunt," she said resolutely, iron in her gaze. "I will hold the city in your absence."

Lenna smiled faintly and let her pen drop to the table. A large smear of ink bled across the parchment, but she paid it no heed.

"Call a servant," she said perfunctorily. "Addy and I will leave as soon as we are fitted for travel."

Sandor LVII

The pain made it impossible to tell how much time had passed. He'd slipped into that comfortable darkness like sliding into a hot spring or a fresh bed, comfortable and almost content in the knowledge that the pain was over, regret and resignation in the curl of his hands. He didn't want to leave, but the struggle was over.

Until it wasn't.

He remembered little in the beginning, just flashes of light, the bone-melting pain consuming him, and the silence. Such a strange, full quiet, like water pressing about his ears, his eyelids and lips. It was bright and overpowering, and he tore it and ripped it and clawed at it with his own mute screams, but there was no answer to his futile, dumb curses and pleas to return to the darkness.

It rocked over him like a wave passing over the body of a drowned man, pushing at him, throwing his limbs akimbo as he fought and failed to move, to gain some control of what was happening to himself. The inability to see, to speak, to move was hell, his hearing and sensation raw, exposed, and blind. He felt like he'd been flayed and then tossed into the sea, salt mixing with his blood and burning the insides of his veins and arteries while he rocked to and fro in an invisible tide.

Eventually, his brain supplied him with visions though his eyes would still not open. He could recall tumbling down the ravine and landing in such terrible pain that he eventually went numb to it. He remembered a girl with gray eyes, not a pretty girl, but a fey-faced, boyish child who cried on him. He thought it rather extraordinary at the time, it seemed to him, that this particular child should weep for him. It filled him with a begrudging tenderness. And he remembered dying, at least he thought he did, his fingers resting against something soft and smooth and cool as he slipped into death like slipping beneath the surface of a lake.

Only it was clear that he hadn't died at all, though whatever this was could certainly be described as hell. After a long time rocking, he found himself still again, and eventually his eyes opened, staring. He could not turn his head and he was no longer in the ravine, but in a rough bed in a small room. The bed was too short, the end of it crudely extended to accommodate his size. The girl was gone, there was no trace of her, but beside him on the crude table was a faded blue bit of cloth, embroidered with white.

He'd tried to reach for it once or twice, wanting it fiercely even though he did not quite know what it was. It seemed familiar, but it hurt too much to stretch his arms out, and they would not do as he bid them. He could barely move, and he lay there for days or weeks, hazily wakening at uneven intervals. He could never fully focus when he woke, the strange, soft shapes that moved around him tipping his head back and pouring warm liquids down his throat. Liquids that made him sleepy and sick, like he'd taken milk of the poppy and too much wine, perpetually nauseated and unable to finish a thought long enough to sort out exactly what was happening to him.

His legs gave him a great deal of pain. It felt like someone had taken a hammer to them, like a convict splitting rocks. He felt splintered, and he couldn't move the damn things despite trying. They were too heavy, too stiff through the knee and ankle. Sometimes they itched like a swarm of ants was crawling under his skin, but mostly they just burned, as if his bones had gone molten, turned into red-hot steel tempered in a smith's forge, and then been put back into his legs, searing him from the inside. At the worst of it, he woke screaming, only to have more of that liquid poured into his mouth, slipping back into a brown, rusty place that was neither sleep nor death nor rest. All he wanted was the black again.

He was always groggy when he did manage to open his eyes, to take what little detail he could, but his waking grew longer and longer, and the pain duller and duller until it was a bearable if constant companion. That's when he realized that he couldn't move his legs because they were completely immobilized, splinted between long pieces of heartwood and thickly bandaged. His left arm was similarly treated, and the fingers of his right hand were splinted, too. He felt like a stick-man, some bizarre, stiff doll.

The blue fabric was still on the table, and he reached for it with his right hand, bandaged fingers too clumsy to grasp it. To his surprise, an old hand picked it up and passed it to him.

"Awake, I see." The voice was grizzled, as if not often used, and Sandor rolled his head to get a look at the man. He was old, wizened, with a bushy gray beard and eyes that were too young for his face. "You've been in and out of the seven hells, I wager. Are you in pain?"

Of course he was, but it was dull in comparison to what he'd been feeling, so he shook his head, wincing with a muffled groan.

"A warrior," the old man said with a tinge of humor. He was wearing robes, brown and dun-colored homespun, rough and scratchy, bound with a length of rope at the waist. _A fucking monk_. "Covered in scars from head to foot. Never seen someone both so keen to die and desperate to live."

Sandor grunted, turning his head away. His shoulder pulled at the movement and white pain flashed along the muscles of his neck like lightning.

"I can tell you're not a talker, but if you want to speak, best do it with me. You won't get so much as a peep from the others, you see. Vows of silence."

 _The Quiet Isle,_ he thought. That explained the monk's robes, the strange, heavy stillness that had surrounded him. His memories were piecing themselves together like some perverse patchwork quilt. The Quiet Isle was in the Riverlands. He'd been travelling. The girl, his brother. _Lenna_.

Oh gods.

"How long?" he rasped, looking back at the brother. The monk's eyes brightened.

"Nearly three months," he replied. "Someone found you in the wilds, both your legs shattered. No explanation of how or why, but they brought you here."

"Who?"

"Strange sort of person. Seemed familiar. Burly fellow with an eyepatch. And a Red Priest."

 _Dondarrion_ , he thought grimly. Of fucking course.

"Haven't seen hide nor hair of either of them since. And you were nearly dead when you made it here."

"You know what that is?" the monk asked as he nodded his chin in the direction of Sandor's hand. He'd barely noted the soft cloth between his fingers. Blue, once bright, now faded. His fingers tightened over it.

"I know who you are, Clegane," the old monk said. "And I know that sigil. I may live in solitude here, but we hear news despite ourselves. Plenty of visitors, beyond what your friends have told me."

"Should have let me die," Sandor said quietly. "It was my turn."

"Obviously it wasn't, though you did try," the brother said. "The broken legs were one thing, but you already had an infection. Left shoulder." That explained why his neck hurt each time he so much as twitched. "Fever in you raged for nearly two weeks straight. Would have killed any other man, but you didn't really want to die, did you, Clegane? And I suspect that it has something to do with that handkerchief."

Sandor didn't look at him, but he didn't release the cloth either.

"Call me an old romantic," the brother said with a smile. "I was a young man once. And I've heard the songs. The Hound and a lady and kidnapping. Tragic stuff, really, the way they sang it." He looked at Sandor shrewdly.

"I won't stay here," he said lowly, forcing himself to turn back to the monk despite the enormous amount of pain in his shoulder. _Tragic stuff_ , he thought darkly through the thick crimson haze, _he has not idea_. Here the old man was trying to prompt him for a story, and he'd have no idea that the telling of it would truly be his end. Not now, not with her lost to him.

 _You certainly must have pissed off the gods. They won't even let you die for what you've done._

"Oh no, boy. You're not going nowhere. Not for a long, long time."

Anger giving him strength, Sandor tried to sit up, but found himself flat on his back again with the barest pressure at his shoulder from the brother.

"A very long time, indeed."

Another six months. In that time, Sandor learned to bend his legs again, his bones stiff and ungainly. His arms were easier, and he went to work for the Elder Brother, the man in the dun-colored robes who could speak whenever he pleased. Sandor almost resented him, how much he talked, as he loved the silence himself. For weeks and months, he relished the mindless strain of muscle as he split wood, dug ditches, hauled barrels for the brewers. His legs were still weak, difficult to manage, but he grew steadily stronger, measuring the days in aching sinew and the slow, steady loosening of his knees.

The Elder Brother jabbered on at him sometimes while he worked, like he was trying to coax him into talking, giving up his story. Sandor wondered why he cared so much, finally deciding he was simply in want of a good yarn. But he was no story-teller. He kept his silence.

Sandor Clegane was not about to talk of what had brought him to that place. He was not going to recount his fight with his brother, one that haunted his dreams each night, or what he saw at the Twins, or the events at Riverrun. The fighting was over, from what he could tell, and he didn't want to know what that meant. He refused to ask.

The Elder Brother did enough talking for the both of them, one of those who would rather do the penance than avoid the sin. Sandor took on his own vow of silence, something the Elder Brother remarked on, but he was grateful that the old man didn't press him on it. He kept trying, but he didn't force the matter.

Sandor was not a brother, but he lived among them and they treated him as though he was. There was comfort in the work he did, whatever they needed of him. Even in his weakened state, he was stronger than any of them, and often took on the worst of the labor without being asked: hauling casks of water, retrenching the latrine, loading the wagons with barrels of beer to sell.

That night, he was digging a grave, some nine months after he'd arrived on the island, his back again strong. It was raining, dark, but despite this it was fairly easy work, pushing the spade through the loamy ground in preparation for some fat old monk who had died peacefully the day before. The other monks had taken it as cause for celebration, and the ale had been flowing. They were noisy and too merry for penitents, all celebrating their own deaths in advance, and Sandor had eaten his stew of crabs and potatoes and gone back to work, knee deep in the mud, his clothes plastered to his body as a sharp wind blew.

"Fucking hells."

He thrust the spade into ground and looked up from beneath his dripping hair. He'd missed the sound of hoofbeats in downpour, but there was a dapple gray stallion standing just beyond the lichyard gate, led by a figure nearly as tall as himself, clad in an oiled cloak, the water streaming off in rivulets.

"Is that you, Clegane?" A large hand lifted the edge of the cloak and he could see blue even in the dim light of his lantern. "Where the fuck have you been?"

Brienne Tarth took another step toward him, causing him to take a step back. His legs, still stiff, buckled slightly and he leaned heavily on the spade's handle.

"Steady," she said, holding a hand out as if he was a startled horse, alarm etching her sober face as she realized it was weakness and not fear that set him off balance. "It's me, Clegane."

"I fucking know who you are," he replied, his throat tight with disuse. "Why are you here?"

"Could ask the same of you," she said, her mouth tight as an arse-hole. He wondered that she was angry.

Sandor yanked the shovel back out of the earth, striding past the woman. She didn't move as he went. He grunted.

"Coming or not?" he asked over his shoulder. Tarth looked back at him, her mouth no longer clenched, but open. She did not move. He growled. "Suit yourself."

Stumbling, he made his way back toward the refectory where the monks were gathered, in search of the Elder Brother. He would want to deal with his guest himself, and Sandor wanted to make himself scarce. The last time he'd seen Lady Brienne had been just a scant week's ride from where he currently stood, but a year and a half earlier. He wondered at her appearance, but her presence filled his belly with lead. He wanted a pint of ale and the seclusion of his bunk, a small room in the rear of the stable where no one dared to bother him.

The Elder Brother saw him when he opened the door, and the Tarth woman must have followed him as the old man slipped away from the other brothers and hurried across the room.

"Many welcomes," he said quietly, ushering Tarth inside and out of the rain. "I thank our friend for seeing you safely in from this weather. Can I offer you supper? Something to drink?"

"I thank you, brother," Brienne said stiffly, eyeing Sandor. "Shelter from the night. I would leave on my business in the morning."

"Of course, my lady," the Elder Brother said. "Please, follow me." Sandor turned to go, but the brother seized him above elbow. "You'll come too, friend."

He was still dripping wet, his hands clenched into fists the size of beer barrels, but he did as he was bid, trailing behind the Elder Brother, Brienne Tarth casting her bright eye over her shoulder every so often.

"Let me take your cloak for you," the Elder Brother said, taking the oiled garment from Tarth and spreading it before the fire. His study was a small room, almost a cave, spread with thick carpets and sporting a hearth too large for the space. It was the least austere room in the compound, the Elder Monk having no scruples about hoarding comforts for himself. There was always a merry fire roaring in the grate, and Sandor backed up from it as the flames licked outwards. "Warm yourself."

Brienne of Tarth took up a position by the hearth, her eyes still on Clegane.

"I see you are acquainted," the Elder Brother said, ushering in a silent brother with a tray consisting of a steaming bowl of stew and a jug of beer. The women didn't eat in the refectory with the monks when they appeared, but neither did they eat in the Elder Brother's private study. Sandor took a deep breath. He felt as if his host knew something he did not.

Brienne looked between the monk and Sandor. "Yes. Briefly."

"You are surprised to see my friend," the Brother said. "Thought him dead, I'd wager."

"Yes. We all did," she replied. Sandor glanced up from beneath his hair. "Well. Almost all of us."

"We?" the Elder said.

"Yes." She looked hard at Sandor. He scowled at his gnarled hands. "We did. His wife and family."

"I've got no wife or family," Sandor replied darkly.

"You fucking piece of shit," Brienne snarled. "To deny her-"

"She's another man's wife," he bit out. "Not mine. Not any more."

The blue eyes narrowed to slits, the shades of cerulean and sapphire almost glowing through her pale lashes. "What in seven hells are you talking about?"

"She married the Frey," he breathed, and he tasted his brother's breath, hot and dank on his face as he leaned down to deliver that blow, much more fatal than any he'd landed with his sword. Sandor gulped. "Don't you know?"

Brienne shook her head as if shaking away a pesky fly, confusing carving a dash between her nearly invisible brows.

"Perwyn Frey?" she asked, her voice rising in disbelief. He made no answer, but Brienne Tarth's brow darkened and she moved a step in his direction. "Perwyn Frey is dead," Brienne said, her voice low and soothing, like she was talking to an unruly child. "Clegane- she never married anyone but you."

"My brother-" he started, then slammed his mouth shut. Of course. His brother had tried to distract him, sap his will, make him easier to destroy. _Worked, didn't it_? He felt like he was going to faint, and that was not a feeling he was used to.

"Clegane," Brienne continued, "do you really not know?"

"Know what?" he asked hollowly, wishing the pit he was standing in would double in size and swallow him up.

"Come with me," Brienne said shortly. "When I leave tomorrow. Go back to her. She's been waiting."

He closed his eyes, his fingers curling inward. He could barely hold a spade like this, let alone a sword. He was useless to her without his strength. Useless to all of them, like a gelded bull-ox. What place was there for a warrior who couldn't fight, who they didn't trust to begin with. "No. I'm-"

"You'd truly abandon her, then?" Brienne of Tarth was angry, and Sandor quailed. "You've been gone for so long, Clegane. Nearly two years. Years that she's been waiting for you, insisting that you weren't dead, that you were coming back. We all thought her mad, but here you are. She was right."

"She always is," he replied dully. "But I can't."

"You must," Brienne said evenly. "Why do you not wish to go home?"

 _Home_ , he thought. The word made his chest swell in longing, but darkness overwhelmed him.

"I'm of no use," he said quietly. "I can't fight like this. I've failed."

"Failed how?" Brienne queried.

"The Stark girl," he rasped. "Dead or worse because of me."

"Arya?" Brienne said in surprise. "Arya Stark?"

"Aye," he said sadly, thinking about how the child had stayed with him, little face crumpled. He'd asked about her once he'd awoken, the Elder saying there was no trace of her. There had been no news, and he knew that if she had made it to her brother safely, there would be news.

"Arya is safe and sound," Brienne replied. "At home, among her family in Winterfell."

"Winterfell?" he asked dumbly, so tired he could barely lift his eyes or move his lips.

"Clegane," Brienne said tersely. "I think there is much you need to hear, but I'd prefer not to do it standing at the latrine."

The elder brother nodded, and Sandor heaved himself out of the pit. He was still thin, rangier than ever he'd been after months and months of convalescence, but he was strong again.

Brienne looked him over.

"You've seen better days," she said with a wry twist of her lip.

"Was always ugly to begin with," he retorted with a snort.

"We have that in common," she smiled, and they followed the Elder into the low-slung building where the brother's lived. The old man led them into his own office, hesitating at the doorway.

"You should stay," Sandor said as the old man tried to leave. "You should hear the news just as much as me."

"I am beyond worldly-"

"Horse shit," Sandor groused. The old man closed the door firmly and took a chair to the side of the room, burying his hands in his robes.

Brienne stood in the middle of the floor, and at the beginning, Sandor stayed standing as well, but the more she talked, the weaker he felt, until he was slumped into a chair with his hands in his hair fighting the fucking tears that were welling in his throat.

Robb Stark dead. Winterfell retaken, now held by its Lady, Sansa Stark. The girl had survived after all, fled North after Joffrey's death. He felt sick pleasure when the warrior told him of the young king's death. Then she told him of young Tommen and his Tyrell queen, of the Faith Militant and the High Sparrow, of the death of Tywin Lannister and the flight of Tyrion from the Seven Kingdoms.

And then she spoke of Lenna. Of how she and Olenna Tyrell had been able to still the fighting in the North, to establish an independent commonwealth and broker a tenuous peace with the South through the work of Olenna's granddaughter, Queen Margaery, and Lenna's own cunning, buying back from the Iron Bank the debt that had strangled the Crown.

And then he heard how both of her brothers had fallen at the retaking of Winterfell, and how Lenna had taken on the bulk of the governance of White Harbor in her father's own decline. A stroke, the Tarth woman said, had kept Wyman Manderly bedridden for six months following the victory, at least from what she had heard.

"I am headed to the Lady in the North," Brienne said quietly. "I am her shield now, as I was her mothers, and have recently dispatched her business. I only stopped here for shelter on my way. The Quiet Isle has taken me in before." Her lips were a thin line. "Perhaps you could come with me. Lend your sword to our cause."

"You've just finished telling me that the war is over," Sandor growled. "I'll stay here."

"I told you no such thing," Brienne replied. "I only said that the conflict between the crown and the North was put to rest. A war of a different kind is coming."

Sandor scoffed. "From where?"

Brienne looked at Sandor and at the Elder. "If I tell you either, you won't believe me."

"More than one?" Sandor asked, turning a hard gaze on the warrior.

"Jon Snow whispers of an army beyond the Wall," Brienne replied. "Coming for us. And if that was not enough, Daenerys Targaryen has raised her own forces and comes with her dragons to retake her throne."

"Fucking hells," Sandor chortled, put in mind of Lenna's old red book. "Fairy tales. You expect us to believe fucking fairy tales?"

"I said you wouldn't believe me," Brienne said. "But I saw the missive from Tyrion Lannister myself. He's gone over to her side, the Targaryen's. He sent the letter to Lenna, asking for her help. Or so my Lady Sansa told me."

He growled before he could stop himself. They always wanted to get their hooks in her.

"You cannot stay here," the Elder said from his corner. Sandor had almost forgotten that he was there. He'd been so silent that he faded into the background as Sandor's thoughts chased each other from end of the realm to the other, following and flitting always to her.

"I cannot-"

"You must, my boy," the Elder said. He rose and looked at Brienne. "He's fit for travel. Leave in the morning. Even I appreciate that other matters need tending to more than our gardens. Or our latrines."

Cold stirred in his gut as he outfitted Stranger. He had never quite figured out how the horse had made it into the Elder brother's stables. The old man had never told him, and he thought it best not to ask too many questions, besides.

The journey north was a taciturn one, the warrior only looking at him morosely across the campfire, as if there was something she wanted to tell him but couldn't. Something she wanted to say. He didn't know what she meant by it, but he did wish she would fucking spit it out.

She didn't.

They rode through Winterfell's gates on a warmish afternoon, snow falling only lightly. The yard itself was mud, and Sandor was put in mind of his first arrival in that Keep, not at all impressed with the homely, dirty surroundings, but feeling at home enough.

A stable boy took Stranger from him, leading him into the stables. His time with the brothers had left him docile as a lady's palfrey, and Sandor felt only a little pang at the loss of the horse's wildness. He was not unlike his mount, softened by his time among the silence and labor of the monks.

It had been nearly two years since he'd ridden from Riverrun's gates, and he could hardly count himself the same man who had left King's Landing in the midst of the Battle of the Blackwater. Standing in Winterfell's mud only made him more aware of the fact. The last time he'd been there had been when King Robert was still alive, when they had ridden north to beg Ned Stark as Hand, when he had been so consumed with avoiding a certain lady that he thought of little else.

He was still consumed.

The horses were led off and Sandor stood in the yard a bit dazed, taking in his bearings. Brienne of Tarth was speaking lowly and urgently to a man-at-arms while Sandor breathed and found his bearings. It was not so cold as it had been, the earth underfoot muddy and soft rather than frozen solid, and his breath was warm as it billowed back into his face.

It was a day the Northerners relished in a winter, and as such, many of them were out and about under the pale sky.

A child shrieked and he watched as the little figure darted across the muddy yard, the hem of her dress dark with dirt. Her robust cheeks were red, little rosebud mouth open in delight as gray eyes sparkled.

 _Gray eyes_ , he thought dimly.

"Addy!" came a breathless cry, and a woman darted after her, dark braid swinging down her her back. Her face was alive with the cold, cheeks and nose ruddy with exertion and simple joy, and she caught the child up in her arms, showering the dark, curly head with kisses.

The child giggled, no more than two, and her mother laughed as she hoisted her on her hip, lips planted firmly against the crown of her head as she looked up.

The air in Sandor's lungs fled as he looked the woman in the face, and he felt himself go slack by degrees. First his face, then his arms and lungs collapsed, followed in turn by his knees. Before he knew what was happening, his broken, weakening legs crumpled beneath him until he was on his knees in the mud, still locked in the gaze of the woman just across the yard.

He didn't breathe as he waited, fully convinced that he had finally gone mad and the gods were playing one last, cruel joke on him.

She stared back at him for a long moment, her face stone and ice. But then the thaw came, delicately, incrementally, and her face seemed to fill, with warmth and joy, and her eyes, a muddled green and gray, filled with an incredible light.

Sandor let out the the breath he'd been holding, refilling his lungs with vengeance when she smiled.

She took one step across the courtyard, then two, until she was a half dozen paces away, the child wriggling in her arms. Then the little thing saw him and went quiet. For a long moment they regarded each other, the little girl and the grizzled old warrior. The child lifted her arms toward him in uncertain invitation, and her mother beamed.

"I knew," she said, just loud enough that he could hear the laughter in her voice. "I always knew."

A/N: It's been a long week. I'm getting into the final stages of figuring out where this rollercoaster is headed. Forgive the little typos. I'm a bit tipsy.

All reviews are welcome. Hope everyone is well. Thanks for sticking along for the ride.


	58. Chapter 58

Lenna LVIII

 _Sandor_.

She didn't even know that she had stopped believing he would come back until she spied the hulking form across the muddy yard. Her heart stuttered to a standstill, breath freezing in her lungs until it was almost painful, and then erupting in such a violent puff that it stirred the curls on her girl's head into a dark cloud. She wasn't completely sure it was him at first, couldn't even begin to credit the possibility after so long, but there was no mistaking the scarred face, the enormous height, or, especially the gray eyes.

They were clear and pale, just as they'd always been, looking steadily back at her and sending her blood chasing through her veins like a runaway horse. The busy yard seemed to still around them, some strange pantomime or play, and Lenna was no longer even aware of the bustling of Winterfell's men or women, nor did she mark the return of Brienne of Tarth. She'd thought she'd glimpsed her friend when she chased into the courtyard after Addy, a flash of white-gold hair and steel plate, but thoughts of Brienne faded into the familiar, homespun tapestry of daily goings on as the full force of recognition lodged beneath her breast like a dagger.

He stood like a man struck with an arrow, as if pierced through and still in denial despite his body beginning to betray him. He looked haggard and wiry rather than strong, thinner than she'd even seen him, the lines of his face deeper and more severe, but it was him. She would never mistake the broad span of his shoulders, the gulf of his brown hands hanging at his sides as he rocked on his feet. The gray eyes didn't leave hers, filled with hunger and fear and uncertain hopefulness that made her own eyes smart and her own knees tremble.

Unable to bear the distance any longer, Lenna took a small, hesitant step toward him. His head swung to the side, ever so slightly like a hound scenting the fox, but he remained as if lashed in place. His breath hung before him in the chill air in irregular puffs, and then his legs suddenly went out from under him, a stag struck in the heart, leaving him kneeling in the mud with those great brown hands loosely fisted on his thighs even though he still hadn't looked away from her face. He looked at her the way a thrall might, lips parted and eyes uplifted, and his expression went from hope to vague fear, almost like a man awaiting the blade.

Addy had been struggling in Lenna's arms, she hated being held for too long these days, but the child stilled when she saw Sandor. Lenna took in a sharp breath as the child looked at him, her little brow knit together in the first moments of uncertain recognition. She looked up at her mother briefly in confusion, then back at the father she had never met, arms resolutely outstretched to him.

Lenna could not help but smile, nearly laughing out loud, and Addy strained against her arms, propelling her mother a few steps toward him just to maintain her hold. It made Lenna gain momentum, but found herself stopping short a few paces in front of him, unsure of what to do, how to explain. There were no words that could possibly tell him everything, not in this setting, not surrounded by all of these people, strangers and friends. She felt he would be angered, perhaps saddened or even resentful. None of those were acceptable to her. She could settle for nothing but joy, or, at the very least, reassurance.

"I knew," she heard herself say. "I always knew."

It had hung between them unasked, the question of whether or not she thought him dead. She wanted to run to him and throw her arms around his neck as she might have done if she was younger, to whisper in his ear all the times she had dreamed of his coming back. She wanted to tell him that she never believed her friends, her family, when they tried to make her believe that he was gone, dead or worse, and never coming back. How many piteous looks had she endured from Sansa Stark, or frustrated sighs from Brienne of Tarth? He own family had looked at her with the forbearance loved ones have for dotty old aunts or spinster sisters who insist on their fantasies. She had borne their approbation when she spoke of him readily and often to her girl, daily showing her the only likeness she had on paper, a rough pen-and-ink done by an adolescent Wynna, and filling in the missing pieces with rowdy stories and whispered tales from her past and his, the child only half-attending.

The girl was rapt now, looking boldly at him as young children are wont to do when confronted with new or different people. Lenna held her breath and the three of them remained motionless for what felt like half an age. Sandor's throat was working as he looked between Lenna and the child, his whole face contorted in an uncomfortable mixture of which the chief part was agony, and it rippled across his face like a banner when she spoke. Lenna felt a similar stirring in her chest, as if her veins and innards had all gotten tangled together in some great knot that was now attempting to unravel.

She hadn't imagine that seeing him again would cause such pain.

"Sandor," she murmured, lips bloodless and stiff. He'd been gone for two bloody years, and clearly had been through the seven hells by the look of him. She had seen what war did to men, left them empty of themselves, and a terrible fear gripped her heart and turned it cold. The possibility that he would not be himself had never occurred to her. Sandor Clegane was stubborn, made of far more savage stuff than a man who could _forget_ , yet here he stood looking like some lost and wandering hedge knight, forlorn and forsaken. "Sandor, do you not know me?"

"Aye," he whispered, a ragged word half growl, half speech. "I know you."

 _What on earth_ \- she thought, feeling her hope and joy, such frail and gangly feelings, shrivel down to cinders, sere and sputtering.

Brienne of Tarth appeared solemnly at her side, arms outstretched to take the child from her. Lenna let her go with reluctance.

Was it the appearance of the child that made him so severe? She had dreamed of this moment, but never imagined that there wouldn't have been some way to explain to him who Addy was beforehand. Some preparation would have been in order with some warning of his arrival, some way of telling him what had happened, _who_ had happened in his absence, without him being ambushed with it like a traveler set upon by bandits. But there had been no warning, and no time. With her hands free, Lenna sank down into the mud, his grip on her loosening only slightly.

They were face to face, but he would not look at her. His eyes were clenched shut, his teeth gritting as if against pain. She lifted her own in his direction, but he let out some animal sound, a gutteral, audible wince, and she hesitated.

She allowed herself to stroke his head just lightly, palm skimming. His hair was lank and long, the wave stripped out from negligence and lack of bathing, but he smelled the same, if a little more strongly than was palatable. Sweat and steel.

"Will you not speak?" she asked quietly, her own throat choked. His jaw worked, and Lenna then ran her fingers across his brow, pushing the hair back from his face. He'd always done that, tried to hide from her behind the fall of his hair. "Sandor. Please. Look at me?"

He grunted, but his eyes opened and he managed to meet her gaze.

"Not the homecoming I was expecting," she said in an attempt at levity. She had no idea what to say, what to do. No matter how many times she had imagined it, nothing prepared her for actually seeing him again, not after so long. There had certainly been no preparation for this reaction, whatever it was.

Time or experience had stretched that cord that she felt was strung between them, and that accord, that link had been what sustained her through the long years of his absence. It had been what assured her that he yet lived, confident that if he had ceased to breathe she would have felt it's severing as a blade through her own body. The slice had never come, but she felt completely adrift from the man in front of her, no longer able to suss out what it was he was thinking, certainly not what he was feeling. She despaired, wondering if the bond had grown so thin that it had simply unraveled, like a piece of old yarn stretched too tight, no violent separation but just the natural course of strain and time taking one thread and splitting it in two.

She stared at him open-mouthed and wordless, trying to concentrate on the breath in her lungs, her head swimming and feeling faint. Brienne spoke lowly to Addy, and Lenna was reminded that they were not alone.

"Here," she said, grasping at anything that would repair the cord, that would knot it back together. What better than both of them in one, the child who stood at Brienne's side? Lenna removed her hand, touching the skin of his bristled cheek in the movement, not missing the way her touch nearly made him hiss as if she had burned him, but gratified in a small, sad that he did not jerk entirely away. "There is someone who very much wants to meet you."

He was trembling, she could feel it in the chilly air between them as it quavered with his warmth, but she looked up at Brienne and nodded. The warrior lowered the child to the ground and Lenna turned her body toward her daughter. Addy, always precocious, took the three steps toward her mother and snuggled into the outstretched arm, fingers in her little mouth.

Lenna furrowed her brow as she looked between the two of them, wondering how to explain to him that this was _his_ child, theirs, but Addy did it for her. Wondering if it would be enough to...she wasn't sure what he needed.

"Dis Da?" she asked curiously, turning her gray eyes up to her mother's face.

Lenna found a smile, only a little disappointed to feel it falter on her lips. It was always easier to have strength for the child. Even in her darker times, Lenna had found mettle and determination for her daughter, there being no other choice.

"Yes, Addy," she replied resolutely. "This is your Da. Come back to us, just like I promised." The last she delivered as she looked back into Sandor's face, shuttered except for the eyes which glistened with torment.

The little girl looked at him for a long moment, and Sandor met her gaze. His mouth was parted and something like wonder had softened the crags of his brow and cheeks.

"Sandor," she said gently, his eyes darting to hers like an animal's might, an uncertain dog or a frightened horse. She spoke slowly and carefully, as if to Addy herself. "This is your daughter-our daughter- Adalyn Clegane. She has been wanting to meet you very much." Lenna paused when he didn't speak. She didn't blame him, wondering what she would say or do under similar circumstances and coming up entirely empty. Crippling sadness overtook her and she wanted to retreat, to give herself time to accept that perhaps it wasn't welcome news as she had always believed it would be. She could not read his face. "Addy, give your Da a kiss and then go with Auntie Brienne. Find Auntie Sansa for me."

Addy did as she was told without questions or fear, which frankly surprised Lenna. Addy had a mind of her own, though she was a pleasing child, and she always wanted to know _why_. Now, though, she did not pause. She reached up and laid her little lips on his cheek, right on the scar, and then went back to Brienne, her tiny hand disappearing into the warrior's enormous palm, allowing herself to be led away without a backward glance.

Sandor had gone slack, his gaze still following the little form in the scarlet dress and dark cloak, Brienne bent nearly double as she spoke to the child in her deep voice. His breath moved lazily in the air, and he barely stirred.

Lenna made to take his hand but changed her mind, withdrawing her own slowly and with more pain than she thought possible. He looked back at her dumbly. Gods, she wished he would speak.

"There was no way to tell you," she whispered, agony and anxiety growing, her voice and breathing coming too quickly. "I didn't know about her until I reached home, and by then, no one knew where you were. She was born when winter came, and I took her with me to King's Landing, and then brought her here. She's a good girl, so bright and kind and curious. She has asked-"

"How does she know me?" he rumbled at last, his voice tight as a bowstring. "How could she possibly know who I am?"

"Wynna drew you," Lenna replied breathlessly, her own eyes wide as his voice fell on her ears like a welcome song. It was low and rough and harsh as gravel, but she had missed it. "That time in White Harbor. I didn't know she was doing it at the time, but she found it in a sketchbook and gave it to me just before Addy was born. I've shown it to her every day. I wanted her to know you. To know her father."

"Addy," he choked.

"Adalyn," Lenna repeated. They had talked about what they would name the children when they came, but she'd had to make the decision on her own. It had hurt her to do it, to choose without him, and now she was afraid that she'd made the wrong choice. She gulped and looked down at her hands, white and cold in her lap. "Adalyn Clegane. I hope you don't mind."

He shook his head, still staring after the child.

Lenna wanted to weep. None of this was what she would have wanted for their first meeting. Not the mud, nor the shock and unexpected coldness, and especially not the half dozen pairs of eyes that were on them. Lenna had forgotten that they were both kneeling in the mud, the cold and wet creeping through the layers of her thick woolen skirts to smart her knees. She wanted to run.

"She's not afraid of me," he said suddenly, just as she thought to find her feet. The quality of his speech had changed, becoming almost reedy and so uncertain, so full of unnamed shame or fear that her very bones trembled for him. She couldn't imagine what that must feel like, to dread one's own children being afraid of you. It brought back so many old hurts, the indignation she had always felt when he was treated differently because of his damn face.

"Of course not," Lenna said quietly and with more passion than she anticipated, and it gave her a brash courage to reach out and grasp his hand.

Sandor's head went down suddenly, his strong fingers tightening over hers as his other hand ran over his face, digging the heel into his eyes as he rocked forward. He turned from her, the straggly hair hiding his expression, but he swiped at his cheeks before clearing his throat.

"Sandor," she said, her voice cracking as hot tears escaped between her lashes and carved two hot tracks down her frigid cheeks. "I don't care. Whatever it was that has happened, wherever you've been-"

"I failed," he said harshly. "I failed you, Lenna."

"No, you haven't," she insisted, pressing her forehead to his. "You came back. You came back to me."

He looked up at her sharply, expression rocky, but he leaned into her hand on his cheek. Her heart fluttered with relief. It was _something_. She leaned toward him, resting her forehead against his again. He was sweaty, his breath hot on her eyelids, but she didn't care. He was looking at her with that same rapt expression he'd worn beneath a damn willow tree after Ned Stark's tourney, all wary and tormented and still brightened with a faint, white hope.

"Hound."

He pulled away abruptly and Lenna felt bereft and cheated except for the look in his eyes.

"Little wolf," he rumbled, not looking away from Lenna, his face pale beneath the tanned skin, mouth downturned. She wondered vaguely if he felt as she did, that if she but blinked he would disappear again.

Arya Stark was but a handful of steps away, hands clasped behind her back. Lenna, dazed, thought how bemused and proud Ned Stark would be to see her, cocky in her hauberk and boots, hair drawn back from her face just as his had been, but now when Lenna looked at the younger Stark sister, she saw someone else reflected back at her, and from the look on his face, so did he.

"You need a bath, Hound," Arya said at last. "I can smell you from here."

Lenna was shocked at the low bark of startled laughter that cracked from his chest like the breaking of thick river ice in the spring.

"Aye," he replied, getting to his feet and pulling Lenna with him. His hand had tightened around hers, the fine bones of her hand almost to the point of protesting. He reared his head back, peering down at the child from his great height along the length of his crooked nose. Arya's stoic expression faltered and changed into a bright, watery smile. A rare thing, a butterfly in winter. To Lenna's thorough shock, Arya threw her arms around his middle and gave him a squeeze so short and businesslike that Lenna wasn't even sure that it had happened.

"Welcome to Winterfell," the girl said shortly, then spun on her heel and disappeared into the Keep. "I trust you'll seem him settled, Lenna?"

It wasn't the reunion Lenna had long imagined, but his hand in hers was warm and real, as was the simple joy that had smoothed his brow and lowered his shoulders. He stood looking after Arya Stark's retreating form, then turned his head and looked at her askance, as if unsure if she was really there.

"Come," Lenna said quietly, suddenly unsure of what Arya meant. Was she supposed to take him to the barracks? To her own chambers? What did one do with a husband one hasn't seen or heard from in two years? Her cheeks burned with embarrassment though she didn't understand the source of her shame.

 _This is Sandor_ , she thought harshly, chiding herself.

"We'll order you a bath. And I'll get you a change of clothes." He looked at her warily with his doleful eyes. She nearly sighed, her mouth tightening in disappointment. "You must be tired."

He didn't speak or even nod, but when she pulled him, he followed.

Sandor LVIII

It was her. Here in the North, far from White Harbor and safety. His chest wanted to simmer with anger, to roar and rage at her, insist that she go home immediately, but he couldn't. The anger was supplanted with joy and wonder, but it froze in him like a wild Northern cataract and rendered him speechless, motionless. _Useless_.

He hadn't expected anything like seeing her when he rode into Winterfell. Brienne of Tarth was as fucking tight-lipped as they came. Conversation wasn't something either of them were good at, and they'd kept their interactions to day-to-day necessities for most of the long journey. Both preferred it that way, and he wasn't ungrateful for such a taciturn companion on his road North, especially as he was unsure of what lay on the other end of it.

She'd briefed him, of course, told him of the lay of things. He'd listened, disbelieving and scoffing, but he'd listened. She mentioned Lenna's name often enough in the dealings for him to be convinced that there was some truth to them, and he'd agreed when Tarth had suggested that they wend their way to Winterfell, where he might offer his services to Jon Snow.

It was far preferable to the option that haunted him, that he might go to her in White Harbor. He couldn't fathom how that would unfold, what he could possibly say or do to make up for his absence, and, ultimately, his faithlessness. His heart was a dark place, he had always known that, burned and blackened much more thoroughly than his face could be. When he had woken on the Quiet Isle, he had felt himself foolish for even entertaining the idea that he could be anything but a blackguard, a traitor, or a beast. She'd fooled him, she'd convinced him that there was something better in his makeup, but as soon as he'd been told she'd played him false, married to some Frey according to his brother's malicious goading, he had _believed_ it.

It was one thing to love killing as he did, to feel the thrill of carnage and violence. There were many men who felt as he did, who loved it despite their better selves. It was another thing entirely to lose faith at the first suggestion of transgression, especially when he should have known better. She would never- there was no forgiving himself for that, even if she would or could.

Jon Snow was a welcome alternative, though he half-hoped the Northman would take him into some courtyard and lop his head off. It would serve him right. He wouldn't fight it, but he knew it was not to be. He was still too useful to them, his strength still growing and his mind uninjured. Fighting was in his heart's blood, whatever had happened to him. His injuries had been grievous, but they had not been insurmountable. The only lasting discomfort he was left with was the strange ache in his legs where his bones had snapped, and they only pained him with cold. _That's all the fuckign time these days._

Tarth early noted how he winced at the mention of Lenna's name, and he wasn't ignorant of how it made the woman seeth. She had tried to broach the topic a few times, but her face turned puce at Sandor's curses and none-too-kind reminders to fucking mind her own business. He'd come with her, hadn't he? That was enough.

 _Nothing is ever fucking enough_.

If he'd let the woman speak then maybe he wouldn't have felt like he'd just been pushed off a cliff again when he recognized her dark, slender figure in Winterfell's courtyard. It was his own fault that he rode in blind. He never asked any questions, growled each time his own wife's name was uttered even though he fell asleep each night with her eyes dogging his. _Her damn eyes_. Whenever he thought of her, his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth and his throat thickened, and it made him even more saturnine and ill-tempered than usual, if that was possible. It was fear, pure and simple, and he wasn't sure but he thought that Tarth could read it in his face. It offended her, and he could not bring himself to bloody care.

Brienne took to speaking of her almost with defiance, as if reminding him that he had a duty to fulfill. As if he could forget. Each mention of her name was like an arrowhead in his ribs, and Sandor would turn his face away, or throw his hair across his eyes. He didn't want to hear of her, it hurt too deeply. He had spent too much time _away_ , and then too much time thinking her faithless or persuaded into marriage with a fucking Frey. Better he go to Winterfell and die in Jon Snow's service fighting these damn wights than ever see her again.

That was his great shame, that he had believed her capable of such. If anyone was the likely traitor, it was him. He'd already proven himself one time and again, but she had never wavered. He had never doubted her until he _did_ , and by the fucking gods the thought of facing her was far worse than facing Gregor had been. He'd even take one these fucking dragons that Tarth was on about.

He was damned. He was damned from the moment of his birth, there was no explanation. He'd never believed in the seven heavens or the seven hells, fully convinced for many years that he was already dwelling in hell, and seeing her appear before him like some damn apparition left him in no doubt of the conviction. One quick glance at Tarth showed him that it was exactly as she had planned. Her homely face was disconcertingly neutral, bright eyes on him. He didn't know how to describe it, but he could _feel_ her smirking at him, even though her thin lips were still drawn in tight line. He was sure that she had known that Lenna would be there, though perhaps not so immediately, and she had done nothing to warn him. Sandor wanted to yell. _Fucking trapped_. The big woman saw him for the coward he really was.

Seeing Lenna was a blow from a warhammer, her pale cheeks awash with color as she dashed breathless and laughing across the yard. That in itself might have felled him, but then she caught up a little figure in scarlet, a child in a red woolen dress and a dark cloak. The bairn buried her head in Lenna's breast, and he _fucking knew_ , even before the little girl looked him in the face. Something animal, something visceral and raw and bleeding recognized her even before Lenna went still and the child turned her curly head in his direction.

 _Ours_.

Dark curling hair, almost black, a pink rosebud for a mouth, and his own eyes looking back at him.

A groan rose up from gut like the cracking sound of a falling oak. His vision swam, his heart thundering, having risen in his ears to beat against his brain like hammer against an anvil. Then came a gust of chill winter wind, and his mended bones betrayed him.

He was on his knees, his mind on fire as his _wife_ closed the distance with a smile that could dim the sun on her ripe lips. _Wife_. He'd stopped thinking of her as such, remembering how awkward and deceitful it had felt when he had told Arya Stark of it all those long months ago. Perhaps it had been a year. The longer he was away from her, the more it felt like farce. He had no wife, or at least she was some other man's now, and he couldn't possibly have a child. He was a murderer, a pretender, a _dog_. At the very least, it had been a mistake, one he wanted to undo with every mote of his being, even as he wanted to go to her, selfishly balm himself in her scent, the feel of her hair, the touch of her skin. To reclaim her as he had all those years ago, marked her as his.

It wasn't really happening. This was a waking dream, more aptly a nightmare, as Lenna greeted him in joy, introduced him to the child. She was no babe-in-arms, but a robust toddler on long, chubby legs that went where she wished. Serious and somber, she wasn't exactly as he would have expected, but perhaps this was what Lenna had been like as a child. There was still a mad merriment even in the solemn cast of her eyes, betrayed by the dimple in her chubby cheek.

 _Fearless, too_ , he thought, wondering at the little girl's lack of trepidation, pressing her mouth to his cheek with as little consideration as plucking the head off a dandelion or skipping across the yard.

That in itself would have been a marvel to him, but _she knew him_.

Da. Never in his long, torturous life had he actually thought he'd hear some childish lisp call him that, and a feeling like a hook yanked his sternum into his chest and felt as if he couldn't breath, stars dangling before his eyes as he tried not to gasp for air. The roaring in his ears as deafening, like a swarm of bees or wasps, stinging and loud. He shook his head, but it wouldn't desist, growing louder and louder.

"Sandor?"

Her voice was honey-sweet, slicing through the cacophony that turned his vision white and weakened his knees. She pressed his hand, warmth flowing through her palm and up his arm, heading straight for his heart and cutting the tight vines of terror and dread that overtaken his lungs.

They were deep inside the castle, though he could not recall walking through the passageways. The little wolf had come, that he remembered, and sent them inside with mischief in her fey eyes. Lenna had stopped them in front of a heavy wooden door and stood looking up at him with those eyes that had haunted him since he had met her. He drew in a tight breath. So close. Eyes like moss, or dappled midsummer forest leaves, or a troubled sea. They were turbulent now, dark brows furrowed as she searched his face.

"Sandor," she said again, her voice faltering on the syllables, and he wondered what she read in his face. She who had always known him, what he was thinking, and he cursed the idea that she could read his reticence, his hesitation and fear, and despaired that she would not understand it for what it was.

 _Cowardice._

She looked down, eyelashes splayed across her pale cheeks like winter branches on snow. She was gathering herself, he knew it by the way she was cataloging her body, had seen her do it more times than he cared to remember: the night of Blackwater with Joffrey; the day he'd severed her hair; the morning Cersei had bid her return to King's Landing from her home; and, of course, the first time he saw her. Her shoulders dropped and she seemed to grow three inches when she lifted her chin again to his, but her face-

It was closed to him. She had put on her old courtier's mask, and whatever else he was feeling, that hurt him the most. He felt as if she had taken hold of his very lungs and heart and ripped them out through his throat.

He dropped her hand as if she was made of hot steel and pushed open the door with dull, aching fury. It was starting in his belly, bubbling like hot tar, and he wanted to howl.

 _You've fucked it up,_ he thought in a rage. _You've fucked everything up that you've ever done._

He'd seen it, hadn't he? The way her face had been illuminated when she saw him, like she was lit from within by some damn holy candle, the eagerness in her step as she walked to him. And he had stood there like a dumb cunt in the dirty slush, not a word or a gesture for her as she tried- _gods, she fucking tried-_ to speak with him, to welcome him.

She was still at the door, murmuring to someone without. A servant, he figured. And while she did so, he looked around the room in disjointed desolation.

He wondered where there were, whose rooms these were. With a cruel jolt, he realized it was the same room she'd occupied on her last trip to Winterfell, and he knew. The bed with its pile of furs was the same one he'd laid her in that night she'd asked him to stay. What a strange torture, to be brought to that chamber in particular. She had brought him to her rooms. Hers. Did she mean them to be theirs, then? That didn't make any sense, but there was no other explanation that he could settle on. He was barely past the threshold, but he felt as if a wall had been erected that he could not pass. His feet felt bolted to the flagstones.

"A bath has been ordered for you," Lenna said, her tone expeditious and even. "And something to eat is on its way. I'm sure you are quite tired. Your journey has been less than comfortable."

He watched mutely as she bustled about the room. He knew the strange energy that permeated her motions, had seen it far too often in the Red Keep. She was distracting herself with practical tasks, going to her knees before a trunk pushed against one wall. Her fingers moved with surety, familiarity, and he was skewered with the realization that these were _her_ chambers that she'd led him to, not some unoccupied room in the Keep.

"Quarters can be prepared for you in the barracks, if you wish." He nearly groaned at the desolate calm in her words.

"This will do," he managed, still cursing his own churlishness. He wanted to open his arms to her, to feel her soft warmth against him. Why could he not do it?

She smiled wryly. "You'll have to share these I'm afraid." His heart felt cold. "Here."

He took the outstretched pile of garments from her, his eye catching on the embroidery on the collar of the tunic. White hounds against the white linen.

"Where-"

They were ones he'd left in Riverrun two years ago, part of that new wardrobe that had been conjured up for their wedding.

"I told you, Sandor," she said quietly, her eyes watching the door. Suddenly, they met his again and he was once again pinned to his place. "I knew you'd come back."

He was halfway to touching her, his hand raised toward her cheek- he could almost feel it, like the skin of a peach- and a trio of servants bustled in. Lenna stepped back, her smile tight and courteous as she directed them to place the large tub before the hearth. He stood dumbly with the clothes gathered against his side as they filed in like ants, filling the bath with steaming water until the air was steaming and he could see fine ringlets of her hair plastered to her forehead and neck.

"I'll return," she said quietly, her hands folded in front of her like quiet birds on her lap. He wanted to scream to see her like that, all careful courtesy with him. With _him_.

"No," he said sharply, and it was like a bark. "Stay."

She took a deep breath and went to the door, seeming to hesitate as she stood before it, like she was deciding whether or not to obey him, to humor him.

She pushed it closed and barred it, taking an uneasy step back into the room with her shoulders thrown back.

"Do as you will," she said lowly, and he thought he heard disdain in her voice. She moved to the small desk beneath the window. The shutters were open and a draft was slinking into the room from around the wavy glass panes. Lenna sat on the low-slung seat before the writing surface and paid him no more mind, dipping her quill into her inkpot. The room was soon filled with the sound of her nib scratching across parchment, and Sandor thought it was like to drive him mad.

He stripped, settling in the tub as best he could. Large as it was, it was still smaller than could comfortably accommodate a man of his size, but he did the best he could. He dunked his head into the steaming water, relishing the way the cold skittered across his damp, exposed back, water sluicing down his long hair and into his eyes. He groped blindly for the soap.

"Here."

He froze. Her voice came from very near his side and with a quick swipe, he'd pushed his wet hair aside. She was kneeling beside him, the soap in her outstretched hand. Her eyes were averted.

"Take it," she said, her voice shaky, almost pleading. He still didn't move.

In a fit of frustration, she seized his hand from where it rested on the rim of the tub and pushed the bar of fine-milled soap into his hand, then pushed her skirt aside to stand.

He didn't know what possessed him, only that he could not longer bear this mess of his own making. He seized her by the forearm and did not let her go. She shrank from him but she didn't pull away, and though the room was chill, he stood abruptly from the water and pulled her closer.

"Lenna," he said lowly. "I didn't-"

"Sandor, don't-" she said, tears in her voice.

"What do you want me to say?" he asked.

"What do you want?" she asked harshly. "Why did you even come here?"

What did he want? He looked down on her, noting the pink tinge in her cheeks, her brightened eyes.

 _I want what is mine_.

One hand buried itself roughly into her hair, loosening the long braid that spilled over her shoulder. Gods, he wanted to see it unbound, long and flowing as it had been before Robert's death and things went to hell. It was just as warm and silky against his fingers as he remembered, sticking to his damp skin and seeming to pulling him in. Her own hand was gripping his wrist, and she peered up into his face. He saw the hurt and confusion and he bitterly regretted being the cause.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, then his voice gained strength. "I'm sorry."

She shook her head once, arrested by the look on his own face. He knew what he looked like, knew the hunger and the despair and the disappointment were written clear as ink across his face to her.

"I forgive you," she replied just as quietly, and something in him splintered.

He did not care that he flooded the floor of that room, only that she wasn't against him. After two years of wanting her and not having her, to have her at arm's length was unbearable. There was no resistance when he lowered his head to hers suddenly, nothing but answering fervor when his mouth took hers. She whimpered beneath his mouth, a short, sweet puff of air passing his lips from her lungs, and it made him ravenous.

One hand went to the laces at the back of her gown, tugging them loose until he could push the garment out of the way, his eyes still tightly closed. She was gasping beneath him, his name spilling from her lips in broken pieces that made his stomach clench. Her skin beneath his fingers was smooth, soft, and plush, better than he even remembered, so white she seemed to glow. The gown worked itself over her pale shoulders, down over the swell of her breasts until it fell about her hips in a pool of good, study woolen, nothing like the silk she'd worn in the Red Keep.

The gossamer-thin chemise had been replaced by one of linen, but the tie at the neck was the same. He pulled it almost absently, letting the cloth slip from about her shoulders like ice melting.

She stood before him with her head lowered, breathing harsh, a flush overspreading her skin from sternum to jaw. Years it had been since he'd seen her like this, but it was no less appealing to him. Her breasts were fuller, heavier than they had been, and there were opalescent tracks across her hips and belly, like spiderwebs. He ran a finger along them, feeling how the skin there seemed softer, looser, knowing these to be the marks of the child, and he was set adrift by a powerful sense of loss.

How he would have loved to see her round and ripening with the child, to watch as she grew and changed and welcomed their bairn. He wished he'd been there when she was born, to have been able to hold her when she arrived, to see the gray gaze first.

Lenna must have seen where his eyes had gone, have noted the sadness in his eyes.

"I do not mean to disappoint-"

"You don't," he said sharply. "Is that what you think? That I find you wanting?"

She met his gaze boldly, not seeking to cover herself. "What other explanation-"

"I missed it," he said fervently. "I dreamed of it. You carrying my pup. I missed it all."

Her lips were parted, cheeks red with excitement and embarrassment.

"There could be-"

"What?" he demanded.

"There could be others," she finished in a whisper.

He growled.

It went too quickly. The chemise was on the ground and then she was gathered up in his arms. He laid her down in the furs just as he had on that long-ago night in Winterfell, so jealous and angry and hopeless that he'd gotten shit-faced afterward, but this time, when her arms went around his neck, he spread himself alongside her and let his hands speak for him.

He traced her breasts and waist and thighs with a heavy hand, the firm plushness of her body reminding him that this was real, that she was against him again. He'd untied the end of her braid, and her hair was unraveling as he moved over her, his mouth on her throat, brushing against the place where her pulse fluttered. Her mouth was gasping and bruised from his attentions, and he thought his cock would burst when he clumsily dipped his fingers between her legs and felt exactly how much she had missed him.

He wasted no time, his blood thrumming white when she parted her legs for him, circled his shaft with her hand and led him into her. It was not gentle, but she responded to him just as he remembered, wanton and grasping beneath him, her hands running over his shoulders and twining through the hair at the base of his scalp. Her hips lifted to meet his, and the voluptuous warmth of her overpowered him until he spent himself in a shudder or two, head reared back to look at her, to watch her ecstatically furrowed brow and her lips rounded in pleasure as he filled her.

He rested against her heavily, his lips again at the hollow of her throat, his heart pounding against the flutter of her own. They were both sweaty, and he felt as if every bone in him had melted. He couldn't have lifted himself if he'd tried, nor did he want to. He was too busy enjoying the feeling of her running her hands through his hair, too embarrassed by what he knew he'd crooned into her neck, her ear, as he labored over her.

 _I'm sorry. I love you_.

It was true. It had always been true, and it humbled him to admit to it after so long. He was sorry. Sorry that he hadn't seen it coming, that he'd allowed his damned pride and perverse honor to separate them. Sorry that he had left her to bear his child and his name alone, to fend for herself against the Seven Kingdoms. Sorry that he hadn't shared it with her.

But he also loved her. Loved that she had kept faith in him, loved that she had borne and raised such a beautiful child. So much more beautiful than he ever thought he could get, and she was somewhere in this keep. He loved that she had been the one who had brokered this strange alliance between Tommen and the North, that she had been instrumental in building the defense against these strange creatures from the North, this queen from the East. He was _proud_ , and not unaware that he would have stopped her if he could.

Her hands stopped roving over his back and a strange shaking overtook her. He pulled back, terrified that she was crying, but when he met her eye, she wasn't crying but laughing.

"What?" he asked dumbly, feeling bared to her.

"Nothing," she replied. "Only, the water must be frigid by now."

"How is that funny?" he asked, not even a little annoyed.

"Because," she said, raising up on her elbows and kissing him soundly. "They needn't even guess where we are, my love. Or what we've been doing."

She laughed again and he growled, burying his head in her neck and damning them all to the seven hells.

She was his, damnit, and he wasn't letting them have her. Not yet. Not ever.

A/N: Ok. So we're at a place. I can feasibly end it here with a nice epilogue, OR I can keep it going. Y'all's call. Let me know what you think.


	59. Chapter 59

Lenna LIX

She sped through the slush and the snow, not even bothering to lift her skirts from the mud. The raven had come as she was sitting at Sansa's side in council, and the news to contained had set her mind alight. She had risen quickly from her place at the table and left the room without any preamble, Sansa and Brienne watching open-mouthed and frowning as she went without a word, without telling them what the little scroll contained, or even where it had come from. Lenna didn't want them, she only wanted Sandor.

How she could have ever felt that whatever it was that bound them up together had faded she now couldn't fathom. If anything, his appearance at Winterfell had wound it ever tighter, Lenna feeling his absence even more acutely when he was just away from her in the training yards or the armory than she had in the two years of his ranging through the Riverlands.

She had coaxed the story from him gradually. He was loathe to speak of it, preferring instead to use his hands to remind her of who she was to him, of who he was to her. But she was never one to be deterred by his tight-lipped silences, and she wrenched it from him gently between strokes of his hair and beard, his head pillowed against her shoulder in their bed, sated and quiet as the embers in the hearth died down to nothing, going cold and sere at the same pace as their eyelids grew heavy, Sandor's voice low and raspy, like wisps of smoke in the dark.

Promising herself that she would reserve her judgment, that she would not get angry with him for the choices he had been forced to make, she had instead found herself turning her head into the wall to stave off the tears that would inevitably silence him as he chronicled where he'd been with obvious effort, his voice flat and devoid of feeling when he described the Red Wedding and his battle with his brother. She found the reserves of strength not to turn his pain into hers, rather listening and prodding him when needed to elaborate, and sometimes just to know when to let him stop, when not to press him any further, to let him fall asleep on her, heavy and enormous and warm. And there.

Though his struggle with the last years was apparent to her in every fine, deep line on his face, so was the joy he found in Addy. To think she'd been nervous about introducing him to his "pup," as he called her, was unthinkable to her after a few short months.

Now she was desperate to find them both, needing the comfort only they could bring, her brain a furnace and her stomach a cauldron. She found them in one of their usual haunts, deep in the godswood, her daughter's laughter bouncing off the trees like a child's ball. Even though her breast was tight with too many tangled feelings, she paused breathless to see them together.

Sandor was on his knees in the snow with no concern for the cold, Addy beside him giggling as she helped him gather snow into a ball, packing it tightly with her little hands beneath his enormous ones, carefully following his low instructions as they lifted and settled it on the mound they'd already created, short and squat. They had been hard at work, it seemed, two other snowpeople already standing silent as sentinels beneath the heart-tree's red canopy. There was a great, hulking snowman sporting Sandor's gloves, twigs for its hair that fell down to cover half of his face, and a smaller one that had been made to look like it had a braid draping over one shoulders, lichen covered stones set in the snowy face for her eyes. Now they were busy with a third, a tiny little thing that would undoubtedly have a mop of curled leaves for unruly hair.

Lenna could hardly bear to disturb them. She struggled with the sensation of a battle being waged in her chest, vacillating wildly between joy and profound fear. Seeing him with their daughter this way was more than she could have ever hoped for. He had been awkward at first, but Addy's eagerness to know him had done much of the hard work for him.

"Da," she had announced loudly, her little arms extended to him on the second or third afternoon after his arrival. "Up."

Sandor had looked to Lenna in bewilderment for a brief moment, then did as he was bid, lifting the child up and settling her bottom on his forearm, tucking her into his shoulder. Addy had leaned her head against him, her fingers in her mouth, looking out on the world from her new perch like a lookout in a tower. Her little face had scrunched up in delight, and her father had looked wordlessly down at her in a mixture of triumph and disbelief.

In the few months he had been in Winterfell, they had become inseparable when Sandor could get away from his duties. Sandor had been given a command, of course he had, but when he wasn't in the training yards with his men, he absconded with their daughter into the woods or the snowy fields, Addy's little figure in Lenna's old spot on his saddlebow, Stranger almost docile as they rode and explored the lands around Winterfell. They made an incongruous pair, the grizzled warrior and the doll-like child with her sweet face and great gray eyes. She noted that he smiled more than Lenna could ever remember, though it was still just the barest twitch of his mouth. There were no words for the satisfaction, the simple joy and the peace that fell about her like a shawl when they were all together, though she had caught him a few times putting a short sword or a bow into that little hand. Sandor had gone red-faced at the look of cold anger in her eyes, and after long argument they settled that Addy was not to handle blades until she was older.

Of course, then Lenna caught him the very next day teaching her little girl how to use a sling. She'd kept her mouth tightly closed and stalked out of the yard with her hands clenched, Sandor's smirk at finding a way around her proscription making her stomach sizzle.

It wasn't that she was angry, not really. She could not begrudge him for long. If anything, she felt a bit left out. It stung her more than she wanted to admit that they could go spend time together romping and gods-knew-what-all-else while she had to sit at Sansa Stark's side and hear grievances and help administer the newly minted independent North. Her days were spent in the dim Great Hall as she took notes, replied to correspondence, and listened to the endless bad news that came to them from throughout the North and further afield.

Much had happened since Brienne and Sandor rode into Winterfell unannounced. Much that Lenna felt exhausted just thinking about. Taxes. Famine. Feuding. Wildling reavers along the Northern border. She briefed Sandor on what she could, but most evenings she was so tired of it that she thought she would weep when he asked her about how she'd spent her days. He'd eventually realized that it taxing her, and took to spending the time after dinner in their rooms in quiet and more pleasant activities. Lenna counted on those sweet, short hours in the evening to keep pushing herself through the long, wrenching days.

She was glad that he'd settled into Winterfell with hardly a hesitation. He didn't know it, but he walked into that Keep as something of a folk-hero. The people had been shocked by his arrival not because he was the _Hound_ , but because they all thought him dead, killed in pursuit of the Northern cause, protecting young Arya Stark. The shock on his face when he walked into supper that first night had made Lenna's heart swell just as it caused her pain to see his disbelief. His first evening had ended in something of a family dinner, and Lenna was reminded of their brief, happy time in White Harbor when she had still been a girl. Her father had insisted that he sup with the family, and the Stark girls welcomed him to their table with open hearts, Arya close at his left elbow. When the meal was ended, Sansa had come to him quietly, surprising Lenna by gingerly putting her arms around his neck and embracing him. Sandor had been stunned, his face a mask of granite, but when the young Wardeness had pulled away from him, Sandor Clegane had nodded deeply. The closest he came to a bow.

Lenna still wondered at what he had been thinking, but she didn't dare ask. She wagered she could guess, and it was something of gratitude to Sansa Stark. Lenna had come to the realization herself that she now had reason to thank the young woman. It was a foreign feeling, indebtedness to Sansa Stark, but she had a great deal to lay at the girl's feet.

It was Sansa, after all, who had hailed Lenna as Lady Clegane when she first entered Winterfell's gates, Addy in tow. The Northern lords had rumbled, brows dark and voices thunderous, but Sansa had risen and embraced Lenna and called her by that name again, iron and defiance in her thin, pale face. Any whispering or grumbling was quickly put down by Arya Stark, who told the story of how he'd saved her, how she thought he'd died, often and with passion, spit flying with rage of a rabid wolf, snarling and glaring at any and all who were not intelligent enough to hide their thoughts even on their faces. No one would dare argue with either the Wardeness or her fiery younger sister. The Starks were, after all, their rightful lords, and Ned and Catelyn Stark had unexpectedly whelped two ferocious daughters.

Sandor had gone white when a servant in the hall that first night called her by that title, directing them to Sansa's private rooms rather than the Great Hall. His quiet was almost palpable, like he'd become a shadow, still and cool beside her, looking down askance his oft-broken nose with an expression in his gray eyes that made Lenna's heart clench.

He'd not said a word, just looked down and swallowed, his jaw going tight for an instant. His brow contracted, and when she did not correct the maid- she said nary a word except to thank the girl and move along- he'd straightened, suddenly as proud and clear-eyed as he had been the day of the Hand's Tourney years earlier when he'd accepted her handkerchief with a haughty jibe and a half-trembling hand.

The memory cooled the stew in her belly somewhat. It helped her to remember things as they were, things in brighter times. Of course, the very idea that life had been kinder while she was more or less a captive in King's Landing was bitter gall, but it was true nonetheless. She like to think of them as they had been then, like the characters in one of her old books. A warrior with a handkerchief pressed against his breastbone, a lady veiling her eyes and craving silent glances.

The tales always ended before the destinies were written, cut off like a spent spool of yarn. Never in her books had she read about what happened _after_ , when the warriors were wounded or killed, when the ladies were married or widowed. That had been uncharted territory, but it was more like a song than the mooning and the sighing and the furtive glances had even been. No sweet love song, but a story-ballad, one that undulated and fell with the rivulets of a storm's aftermath, subtle but strong, and strangely sweet.

Then what she must say bubbled to her lips again, and the reticence and worry wrapped itself around her like a winding sheet as she desperately held on to the pale, fluttering little bird that was still in residence beneath her ribs. A delicate thing, frail and thing, that still persisted in making itself known even if her mind screamed _folly_. Her heart still cried _hope_.

She stood in the godswood watching him with their child and the little bird beat furiously as she did, her eyes lingering on his face, set and serious but his eyes glittering with simple pleasure as he watched Addy mould and shape the the smallest snowman. She didn't want to upset the picture, to cast the pall that would inevitably fall as soon as she related the news, so she took it all in for as long as she could. Until he looked up and noticed her, the expression in his eyes both a caress and a demand, pulling her closer, summoning her voice.

"Sandor," she tried, just a whisper. She cleared her throat and tried again.

He lifted his gaze to hers, and concern immediately overtook his weathered features. He rose from the ground, dark spots on his knees and shins, and looped a great arm around their little girl's waist, casting her over his shoulder like a sack of winter onions.

"Enough for now, little one," he said, and Addy did not protest, snuggling against his neck as he came to Lenna, taking her hand in his rough, warm one and pulling them both back to the Keep without a word.

Sandor delivered Addy to Old Nan for a nap. She imagined him leaving a blustery, whiskery kiss on her plump cheek. It would make Addy laugh, and the vision of her giggling forced a sob from her gut. She waited. She could feel the tears coursing coldly down her cheeks, unable to stop them from pouring from her eyes even though she didn't feel like she was weeping.

She felt like she was bleeding.

When the door to their chamber shut and his eyes met hers across the room, Lenna dissolved like a child's sandcastle at the tide's edge, and Sandor caught her about the waist.

"Steady there," he rasped, setting her down at the edge of the bed. "Tell me."

She clasped her chilly fingers together. "There was a raven. Just now."

"I gathered that," he said lowly, taking one of her hands in his, pressing his palm to hers. The warmth leaked into her, and she thawed slightly, the fear that had been freezing her thoughts cracking and setting her spinning again.

"It was sent to me," she whispered. "To _me_."

"From?"

She took another great gulp of frigid air.

"Tyrion."

Sandor grunted and stood, stretching to his full height. He ran a hand through his hair as he crouched before the hearth and stirred the coals back to life with the long iron poker. He stayed there on the floor for a long moment, his head bent as he leaned on his haunches.

"What did the Imp have to say for himself?" he prompted, his voice so tight she knew his teeth were grating against each other.

"Daenerys Targaryen has taken Dragonstone," she whispered.

Sandor snorted mirthlessly. "That wasn't hard."

Lenna dug her hands into the mattress, her skin feeling like it would split across her knuckles. "He wants me to come and negotiate with her. To make some alliance for the North."

"We are allied with the crown," he growled.

"Yes," Lenna said. "For now."

She wasn't oblivious to the tenuous nature of their ties to the Crown. She'd negotiated them herself, after all. The North was, more or less, independent of royal decrees, though they still paid taxes and made assurances of military support in the event of warfare. It was Margaery's influence that had settled the tension between the North and the rest of Westeros, and Lenna had been in steady correspondence with her cousin in the intervening years.

There were rumblings now, far too loud to ignore, of the exiled Targaryen princess and her dragons conquering swaths of Essos with her Dothraki army. To think that she was now at their doorstep, sitting on that rugged outcropping at the entrance of the Blackwater was almost too much for her to comprehend, and Margaery's nervousness about her proximity translated into the fine tremor visible in her hand when she sent her weekly raven.

At the same time, Lenna feared most what lurked beyond the Wall. There were moments in the night where she woke to laugh at herself, feeling ridiculous to be scared by what she had always believed were children's fairy stories, told to enforce the behavior of little girls and boys south of the Wall. But Jon Snow had returned a month ago from beyond the Wall, and his tales of what he and his men had found there made her shake down to her marrow, every bit of her cold as ice to think of the army they claimed to have seen. An army of the undead.

It made the squabbling with the South seem so pointless and petty, lordlings in a spat over the illusion of power, playing a game with their vassals' lives. If what Jon Snow said was true, if there was an army on the rise and intending to cross the Wall and invade southward, then there was no other option than to find some common ground with the Targaryen, especially now that she was in possession of Dragonstone.

The North could not stand alone against such an onslaught, if it was coming, especially not without plenty of dragonglass. There were only two things that could kill the damned wights, Valyrian steel and dragonglass. She'd seen the evidence herself, the old entries in the books that posited that dragonglass could be used to stop such wights. Snow attested to its efficacy himself, and since Valyrian steel was in short supply, it left them in a rather desperate lurch.

"I must go," she whispered, though it almost hurt to say it out loud. "Tyrion will listen to me, he will help if he can, but we must have some connection to Dragonstone, without it-"

"Why you?" Sandor asked harshly. "Why does it always have to fucking be you?"

Lenna had asked herself that same question so often throughout the years. She shook her head. She had never understood, never figured out why the Lannisters thought of her as they did. She felt as though she had done something horribly wrong to deserve their constant attention, their demands on her energy, her life.

"I don't know," she said quietly.

"Who else knows about this raven?" he asked, standing abruptly.

Lenna shook her head, confused. "No one. Just me. The Maester-"

"Give it to me," he said lowly, extending his hand. His eyes were shuttered and dark.

Lenna hesitated.

"Give it to me, Lenna," he repeated, his throat working. "I'll burn it and no one need know."

It felt as if he had taken hold of her heart and squeezed it between his fingers, pain slamming through her and choking her voice. She only barely managed to take a step back from him.

He seemed to expect this, his hand falling useless at his side like a felled beast. He pinched the bridge of his nose and sniffed loudly, looking into the flames for a long moment before he turned burning eyes back at her.

"This is why," he replied, his voice like a faraway rumble of thunder as he jabbed a long finger toward the floor in emphasis, but there was no rancor in his tone, just conviction. "This is why they feed off of you. All of them. Stark. Lannister. Now Targaryen. Even me. It doesn't fucking matter. You can't lay your damn honor aside."

"I'm sorry," she whispered. He nodded, then took her hand in his again and led her through the passageways of the Keep until they found the Wardeness.

Days. It only took days for Jon Snow and Sansa Stark to make the preparations. Lenna sent back a raven to Dragonstone, accepting Tyrion's invitation, watching as the black bird grew smaller and smaller against the slate-gray sky. Then she turned and made ready for travel. At first, Snow wouldn't hear of Sandor going, but he learned quickly that he asked too much to keep him from Lenna again. Lenna had herself been surprised by the furious litany that had poured from her husband's lips. Jon Snow had stood down, but only if Sandor agreed to go as his personal guard.

It chafed him, Lenna knew, to be relegated to the role of bodyguard once more, but it was done.

The road from Winterfell to White Harbor was not easy in the snow. It blew into drifts some six or seven feet high, and the going was slow, Addy bundled up beneath her cloak. The party was larger than she had thought would be sent South, nearly a dozen including Jon Snow, Davos Seaworth, who she had been so happy to see at first, and Brienne of Tarth herself. The warrior woman had objected at first, but Sansa had sent her anyway. If Lenna wasn't mistaken, Brienne wasn't entirely unhappy about the situation. She had attracted the attention of a massive Wildling, their leader, a man called Tormund with flaming red hair and a leer that even Lenna found alarming, her own cheeks pinking when she saw the blatant way he stared at her friend.

Like he wanted to eat her. Or worse.

And then they were home. White Harbor gleamed even brighter against the snow, the dark slate roofs covered kindly by the drifts as smoke spilled out of the spindly chimneys, the gray billows rising lazily, warmly, to meld into the drab skies. There was not a sliver of blue sky visible at all, and when she looked up all she could see was the endless stretch of gray, and when she looked behind them, the everlasting expanse of the Northern winter.

Sandor pulled up next to her as they made their way through the gates. It was a moment of bittersweetness for her, thinking about her arrival with Wendel before the massacre at the Twins. She had been so saddened that he was not with her then, that she was entering those gates with her brother and not her husband. It saddened her for another reason now, even as she was overjoyed that he was finally there with her. Wendel and Wylis would not be in the courtyard to meet them.

The guard at the gate went flying up the Castle Stair as their party approached, and when the great gates of the New Castle were opened, what left of her family was standing in the courtyard.

All of them.

If it hadn't been for Sandor, Lenna would have fallen from her horse in her weeping, but he caught her around the waist, slinging Addy onto his shoulders as Lenna stumbled across the cobblestones and fell into her father's arms.

"You're safe home, lass," he crooned, his voice thick with feeling and as a result of his illness. "You're home."

There was less of Wyman Manderly than there had been before, his long confinement to his bed whittling away at the bulk of the man, but his sagging cheeks were rosy, his eyes bright, and he was standing on his own feet. When she pulled away, she saw that he was leaning heavily on a blackthorn cane. He pulled her forward and laid a blustery kiss on her head, and then she found herself being fussed over by Wynna and Wylla.

Her tears dissolved amidst laughter. Even on such an unhappy errand, she couldn't help by rejoice to see them, and when she turned to look at Sandor, to see how he was taking their bustling, she nearly burst into tears again.

Wyman Manderly had seized him by the shoulders, then he was cradling Sandor's head in his gnarled old hands, their foreheads almost pressed together. Lenna could not hear what it was her father was saying to him, but she thought she could guess. The expression on Sandor's face was not unlike that of his namesake, doleful and hopeful in a way that made her both want to weep and laugh out loud. And when Wyman Manderly kissed his son-in-law on the forehead as if he was a child and not a hulking brute of a warrior, Lenna did laugh.

Sandor looked up at her startled, his eyes going wide. He took two long, quick steps toward her and kissed her soundly on the mouth, right there in the courtyard of the New Castle. There was a good-natured nickering, serious Jon Snow even smirking, and Lenna felt a bit dazed. Sandor was never exactly affectionate in front of others.

"I haven't heard you laugh in three years," he said lowly.

So she did it again, standing on her tiptoes and pressing her mouth to his.

Though the stay was brief, only a few days, the Manderlys made it as merry as possible in their customary way. There were oysters and shrimp and pitchers full of ale at the dinners, oatcakes with preserves and summer honey in the mornings, and, of course, music.

Wynna, who had grown even thinner in Lenna's absence, swayed like a willow as she played in the evenings by the fire, and Lenna did not miss the admiration in Jon Snow's eyes. A pity, then, than he was a bastard. It wouldn't have been a bad match in slightest.

Wynna played and Lenna sang, though her voice had gone rusty. The only songs she'd felt like singing in recent years were the lullabies she crooned to Addy, soft songs of gentle magic.

"Sing an old one, Lenna," her father commanded, his booming voice only slightly stirred, his lips and tongue still stiff.

She looked at Wynna helplessly, but when her bow drew across the strings, it was almost as if she were a girl of twenty again, heartsick and happy at her family's hearth. The tunes poured from her throat like water from a pitcher, and she sang until she was hoarse. Her lip twisted when Wynna winked at her across her fingerboard and started up the bawdy chords of the song that had been circulated about she and Sandor. His cheek went pink as she sang, and she didn't miss how his grip on Addy tightened in his discomfort.

It didn't last for long. They put Addy to bed in the nursery and strolled along the ramparts in the cold winter wind. The sea stretched before them, vast and glassy, and Lenna shivered to think that they would board their ship in the morning enroute to Dragonstone.

His arm slipped around her waist and he drew her into the warmth of his side, his cloak wrapped tight around her. She settled back against him, burrowing against his chest as his chin came to rest atop the crown of her head, the both of them looking out onto the dark mirror of the ocean.

"I do not want to go," she said quietly.

"No," he said quietly. He splayed his hand across her belly protectively. "Especially not now."

Lenna drew in a hard breath, her fingers rising to rest against his where they rested below her breasts. She hadn't known but a few weeks, hesitant to say anything unless the child didn't quicken. She'd known of too many losses this early to think of it as a sure thing, and she certainly didn't want to get his hopes up.

"How did you-"

"I'm not daft," he replied. "I know how pups are made. You haven't had your moonblood since I've been back."

She blushed, her cheeks flaming hot in the dark. Of course he would notice such a thing. Now that she thought of it, he'd applied himself to making up for lost time with a single-minded intensity that she hadn't even realized until just then. There wasn't a night when he didn't make her forget everything beyond the four stone walls and soft furs of their room and send her tired and spent into a dreamless sleep.

"I-I-we-" she stuttered. She'd never had to do this before, tell him that she was carrying his pup. She was nervous, embarrassed, even, her cheeks flaming hot as she stared at her shaking fingers, unable to meet his eyes. To her surprise, he laughed low, pressing his mouth to the top of her head, then drew her with him along the ramparts and back to her old room.

Once the door was closed, he took his time, unwrapping her from her layers of woolen clothes slowly, warming her with smooth strokes of his palms, the press of his mouth, until she was sweaty, the moisture on her skin cooling on her skin and making her shiver. There was a reverence and an intensity to his touch that was almost disconcerting, but she welcomed him, could not get close enough even when they were joined.

He fell asleep with his head cradled on her shoulder, his soft snoring making her smile, and in the morning, she woke early. The sun was falling through the shudders like honey-mead, the warm glow coursing through the pits and crevices of his scar as his face was still relaxed in sleep. She ran a hand through his hair, wavy and unkempt, and looked at him a long time, hoping against hope that this peace would return to them once their business was done. Finally done.

A/N: I apologize for the long delay and only giving one point-of-view. I started a new position and things have been...tough to say the least. I hope this tides everyone over for the next week or two.

Thank you for your feedback as always. The overwhelming consensus was to keep going. I don't see it lasting more than another five to ten chapters either way, so I'll try to hash out an ending that we'll all be satisfied with, though I bet I'll make a few enemies along the way…

Read and review- your words have been getting me through some darkness, and I appreciate any and all commentary. This is not my favorite chapter, but its the best I can do at the moment. Bringing S and L out to play has been a source of stress-relief, just not as regular as I would like lately.

Love.


	60. Chapter 60

Sandor LIX

It took weeks before he could wake up in the morning without feeling like he was being dragged through an undertow, his heart pounding in his chest like a siege-engine at a castle door as he fought for breath and reason. When he turned over that first morning, deep in the luxuriant furs of Lenna's bed, her body pressed soft and warm against his side, he was convinced that he was having one of the nightmares that had dogged him through the Riverlands again. But she was really there with him, her face relaxed in sleep, her arm thrown across his chest, and he lay against the pillows nearly panting in fear as he waited for it to fade away, for her to disappear. To wake up and find himself alone and miserable again, or worse, for her to open her eyes and contort her face with anger as she pushed him away.

He tried not to think about those dreams even though there had scarce been a night he was without them for over a decade, good and bad alike. There were green eyes, always green eyes, for as long as he could remember, since he'd first encountered her, but in the years of his ranging they'd changed. In the beginning, the dreams had been sweet, moving him through the days and the danger, but then they'd begun to turn dark the longer he was away, until his sleep on the Quiet Isle had been haunted by dreams of her anger, her rejection. Hate.

So that first morning he lay there waiting for he didn't know how long, his heart beating a war-song in his breast, waiting for her to turn on him. He watched in tense, apprehensive silence as the room filled with pale light. He could see his breath in the air, curling like smoke in the freezing air, and then she had stirred.

And instead of pushing him away, she had snuggled against him, her face against his shoulder, her fingers twining up into his hair and he had turned to find her looking up at him, a glint in those green eyes that was neither anger nor rejection. Quite the opposite.

He didn't know how much time they'd have, and he'd not waste it. Never having believed in the seven heavens, he thought that Winterfell, of all places, might be his, at least for a time. It was fucking freezing, the snow in great, grubby drifts about the yard, the warmth of the fires barely penetrating beyond the great mouths of hearths, but _she_ was there. _They_ were there.

His family. He felt foolish and unworthy and dull just thinking it, but he felt the simple truth of it in his marrow.

And now all three of them were headed straight back into the storm. It was a stolen month they'd had together in the snows, and he bargained with whoever was listening, even if it was just air, for more time. He didn't care if spring never came again, as long as they didn't have to leave the safety of Winterfell, the snug sanctuary of the dirty yard and the dim passageways.

It was no use. There was no hiding from what was coming, and there was no doubt in Sandor's mind that the storm he'd felt brewing for years was finally upon them, only it wasn't one tempest but two, and they were going to meet. One from the North beyond the wall, like a violent blizzard, and one from the south, full of fire and smoke. They were going to collide, and those caught between them would be in the midst of cyclone beyond their kin.

Which of course, meant that Lenna was going straight into the center, and Sandor could do nothing except follow.

The uproar over Lenna's insistence that Addy go with them to Dragonstone was almost entertaining. He was himself not entirely convinced of the idea, but when he saw the set of Lenna's shoulders and jaw, he knew it would not be an argument he would win. If Lenna had decided their daughter was boarding that ship southward, there was nothing that was going to prevent her. The only thing he could do was what he had always done, to be prepared to step between them and inevitable danger as quickly and effectively as he could. That there were two now meant nothing to him.

 _Not two,_ he corrected himself, _but three_.

The time in White Harbor had been pleasant if not too short. It was with some measure of trepidation that he rode into its walls again. After all, the last time he'd been in White, he had been an agent of Tywin Lannister, sent to spy on his Northern host under the pretense of a family visit. Lenna had told him everything in the dozen weeks since he'd come to her, quietly and with a composure that made him angry and ache. The woman he found was still his Lenna, but the light he had always jealously coveted was grown dim, a bit more muted than it had been even as he rode from Riverrun's gates. It grieved him to think of Wyman Manderly bedridden and useless, the old man's gruff personality the closest he could come to when he thought of fatherly concern, but he felt like someone had taken a butchering knife to his innards to hear the flat, rote way in which Lenna told him the story.

When he spotted the Lord of White Harbor standing uncertainly in the courtyard of the New Castle, his heart had given a painful leap. He glanced sideways to see the beautiful old flame ignite in his wife's eyes, tears welling like jeweled dewdrops as her cheeks flushed and her lips parted. _Still my Lenna_ , he thought as he watched her run to her father like the heedless maid she had once been, too relieved and ecstatic about her father's very presence to remember that she was supposed to be calm or collected. He was barely able to catch Addy and put her on his shoulders. He'd almost smiled to see Manderly wrap Lenna up in a feebled hug, fat tracks of tears on his own whiskery face. He had grown thinner in his illness, something that Sandor noted rather wryly, but the stormy, rheumy eyes were the same when they met his over Lenna's shoulder.

There was a gravity and a gratitude in them that made Sandor shift on his feet, dreadfully uncomfortable, the child still balanced on his back with her hands in his hair for stability. Wyman came to him immediately, ignoring the others in the courtyard, his face palsied but almost as eager to see Sandor as he was his own daughter. Sandor felt an upsetting rush of nostalgia when the old lord had clasped his hand and pulled him forward, his mouth by Sandor's ear. When he spoke, the man's white whiskers tickled his ear and his speech was thick with his illness and his feeling, but Sandor could not tear himself away.

"Many years ago, I told you that I would give you anything you asked for if you brought her safe through this," Manderly whispered urgently. "You have kept your word tenfold. I welcome you here as a son. This is your home."

Sandor did not move or respond when the old man grabbed him by the shoulders, and then the head as Wyman pulled him down into his reach, brushing his parchment lips against Sandor's forehead as he breathed a benediction in the name of the Seven.

Sandor stood silent and humbled, sure that his color was heightened and his throat uncomfortably thick. He would not weep, but he was certain he didn't deserve the old man's blessing, not after leaving her alone for so long as he did. He felt undeserving to his bones, but when he managed to raise his glance to see his wife, her eyes sparkling with joy, he met the gaze of her youngest niece. Wylla Manderly's hair was yellow, a long thick braid over her shoulder, and her round face was blotchy and red. She was looking at Lenna, too, something like shock and relief in her features. When her pale blue eyes met Sandors, she met his gaze without discomfort for the first time with radiant thanks.

It was the first of several miracles wrought within White Harbor's gates in a brief spell of time. The second had been hearing Lenna laugh and then hearing her sing again. The sounds of both were strangers to his ear, and not just as the result of his long absence. He had only heard Lenna sing lullabies to Addy in the evening and he gobbled them up, those simple cradle songs, but there had been none of the fine songs she had given them in years past. When she sang to the bairn, it made him think of the stolen songs he'd had of her in years past, hiding in the shadows of the Red Keep's Sept, not understanding what change they were working in him with each sweet sound that fell from her lips. Now he was changing again, almost as painfully, but instead of feeling like he was being reordered from the inside out, this felt like a burgeoning, like his skin was too tight to contain him. He felt like barley in the fields, ripening, and instead of splitting, he gave way to it. When his child turned her eyes on him and lifted her arms in his direction, he didn't try to keep the smile of his lips or his cheek smooth. He caught Lenna looking at him many times with her dappled eyes shining.

"What?" he asked haltingly, the child settling against him with her fingers in her mouth.

Lenna had put an arm on his elbow and kissed his scarred cheek, the sensation of her mouth on his just a sweeping of a feather.

"Nothing," she had murmured in his ear, then enthusiastically cupped Addy's little face in her hands and planted a noisy kiss on her cheek that made the child laugh. Sandor fought the desire to weep, instead settling for brusquely pressing his lips to the top of her head, the curl of her hair swelling against his mouth.

He indeed had wept when she had confirmed that she was carrying his pup again. A babe. He'd suspected already, was almost sure. He'd set himself about making one with single-minded fervor, after all. They hadn't spoken of it, and it was terrible timing, but Lenna had not objected to his near constant attentions, but rather had been an enthusiastic participant in his efforts. He was no green lad unfamiliar with where babies came from. He knew exactly what he was doing, and as the weeks passed he became more and more ferociously glad. There had been no regular break in their activities, her courses had not come, and when he did the calculation in his head, thoroughly convinced he'd grinned wolfishly to himself, but her stuttering admission on the ramparts had made him happier than he could ever remember being.

Happier and twice as fierce.

Now he watched as she held Addy in her arms on the deck of the ship, pointing out landmarks to the child just as she had done with him when they'd travelled to White Harbor together all those years ago. Her hair was unbound down her back, the wind catching it and sending it spiraling like currents do kelp, and both her cheeks and the child's were rosy red from the chill. She lifted her eyes and spotted him, extending her free arm in invitation, and Sandor Clegane, grizzled and hardened and ferocious, went into the little circle with a lighter heart than he'd ever had.

It was a pleasant week spent in each other's company, but it was too brief. Their arrival at Dragonstone hung over them like a shadow, he and Lenna both called to sit with Snow and Tarth more than Sandor liked.

"There's no point in strategy," he barked when Snow appeared at their door to pull them away once more. "You don't know what you're walking into."

Snow blinked back at him dolefully, the dark eyes full. Sandor almost scoffed. The boy reminded him of a chastened puppy, looking so mournful all the time that he could scarce believe the accounts of his prowess on the battlefield, of his courage at the Wall.

Still, he talked and talked, prompting Lenna to continuously advise him until she was almost hoarse, and then Sandor couldn't wait for the journey to be over. Wyman Manderly's fine ship sped over the waves like a blade, but it wasn't fast enough.

Until they arrived, and he felt in his core that it was far too soon, and he wished for Jon Snow's endless councils again.

Dragonstone.

There was no escape for them, from these people or this place. The castle itself rose high above and protected by the natural defense of terrifyingly tall cliffs, as if the island itself had been thrust up violently, puncturing itself through the sea like a spearhead, only a thin, sandy beach allowing access to the fortress, so small that there wasn't even a wharf to receive them.

A longboat took them to shore, Lenna and Addy settled against him as he balanced precariously on the too-narrow bench. The island loomed beyond them, the spires of black stone rising impossibly high, sharp and forbidding. He didn't like it, not one bit, and he liked even less the feeling of utter isolation, of helplessness. If things went poorly, there was no way out. The narrow strip of shore was a sliver, a crescent moon against the stone, and on it stood a lone figure.

From the distance, Sandor watched Tyrion Lannister as he stood watching and waiting for the boat the arrive. As they drew closer, Sandor could easily see that the years had been less than gracious to the Imp, just as they had been less than kind to himself. It moved no pity in him to see the lordling looking gaunt, his hair falling in a tangle of burnished curls, his eye dark and a scar crisscrossing his puggish face. The mismatched eyes were set in an uncomfortably tense stare, and Sandor was too aware that Tyrion wasn't looking at him, or Jon Snow, or Brienne of Tarth. He was looking at Lenna, who sat with Addy in her lap and completely unaware of her old friend's regard.

He stared down at the Imp when the boat that carried them from one of Lenna's fine ships came aground. Tyrion Lannister looked baffled, his curly hair long and unruly as it was buffeted by the icy wind, his strange face covered in a wooly beard. He took three steps forward, his mouth opened breathlessly, and Sandor had to grunt as he lifted Lenna over the side of the boat and set her on her feet in the sand, Addy tucked onto his arm as he waded through the surge of surf.

"Lenna," Tyrion said, his short legs moving as fast as could be as he sped across the little distance. The Imps gaze was resting on Lenna as if he'd been a man starved, and Sandor wondered, not for the first time, if Tyrion Lannister had been the best actor of them all in the whole damned farce.

"Tyrion," Lenna replied softly, her eyes lighting in a way that made Sandor's stomach involuntarily clench. He had always hated this closeness of theirs, this strange kindred nature they shared. Tyrion reached for her with both hands outstretched, not even glancing at Snow or the rest of the entourage. Lenna, to Sandor's consternation, went down on her knees in the damp sand and wrapped her arms around Tyrion Lannister's solid little figure.

Tyrion collected himself, pulling back and holding both of Lenna's hands solemnly between his own. "I had never thought to see you again. You never answered-"

"It is good to see you well, my lord," Lenna replied quietly. Tyrion cocked his head almost as if in pain.

"None of that formality," he said, his voice choked. "Surely-" Lenna stopped him with a squeeze of her hand.

Tyrion looked around himself for the first time, taking in the company. He looked up at Sandor with his strange mismatched eyes, and a smirk played good-naturedly at the edge of his lips.

"Clegane," he said gravely. Sandor could not muster a nod or a word, and the little lord nodded his head, casting his eyes to the ground and narrowing his brows together. He chewed on his tongue a moment, his jaw working, before he squinted up at Sandor with one eye closed and a thoughtful purse to his lips. "Our last meeting was...I can't even describe it. But I will say that I am glad to see you. And grateful."

Sandor clenched his fists and gritted his teeth. _No fucking thanks to you_ , he thought savagely.

Tyrion knew better than to make some pretty speech to him, and instead turned his attention to the child that rested in Sandor's arms. Addy, in her usual fashion, was taking in her surroundings hungrily, gray eyes darting to and fro even as she continued to suck her fingers. It was a habit that frustrated Lenna to no end, especially now as her teeth were all in, but Sandor didn't see the real harm in it. It reminded him of Lenna and her nails, how she would rub them against each other when she was thinking, just a touchpoint to keep her grounded in the same realm as him, her mind too busy and too far away half the time. Especially these days.

Addy was looking at Tyrion in fascination, and Sandor wondered what she saw. Part of him wanted to be uncharitable, but he knew better. If the child could accept _him_ without so much as a tremor, then Tyrion Lannister was not too shocking.

For perhaps the first time, Sandor understood that he and the Imp were more similar than he had imagined. They both suffered for their appearances, and they had both built defenses, their insides twisting to match the outsides. Sandor had hidden behind his strength and brutality, able to do so because of his rougher birth, his enormous size and his usefulness in battle. He wanted men to fear him even as it pushed him further into a prison of his own making, his black reputation a millstone and a liability. It had made no real difference to him, not when he was younger. Most people were shits he didn't didn't give a fuck about anyway. But Tyrion Lannister, on the other hand, had not had the advantage of a modest birth or an obvious vocation. Instead, he'd had to contend with the stares and gasps in the most public way, his meager armor his wicked wit and his undeniable charm.

It left Sandor in mind of Lenna's cloak of courtesy, and he pitied the little Lannister for the first, and quite possibly the last time.

"And who is this little person?" Tyrion asked with a brash clearing of his throat, nodding to Addy. The child was a warm bundle against Sandor's chest, her fingers buried in her mouth as she regarded the Imp seriously, sizing him up. Sandor wished she talked more, or at least talked more sense. She was precocious, true, but she was not quite at the point where she could speak full sentences. He wondered what she saw.

"Adalyn Clegane," Lenna said, breaking into his thoughts. There was pride in her voice and color in her cheek, affection for her daughter and the Imp in her eyes. For all Sandor despised the Imp, he knew Lenna loved him. It irked him to think of the years he'd spent envying the little Lannister, the nights that Tyrion had kept her company in the great library while Sandor railed through the alehouses in jealousy. He didn't like how her face softened when she saw him, or the way she had gone down on her knees on the shore and held him tight, a tear making its way down her pale cheek.

Tyrion smiled and Addy buried her head against Sandor's neck, but she did it with a smile on her bonny little face.

Placated, Tyrion turned his attention back the Lenna. Impulsively, it seemed, he lifted a strangely strong hand to Lenna's cheek, turning her head to look him in the face.

"I'd never thought to see you again, my dear," he said quietly, thickly, but not so lowly Sandor couldn't hear him. "You are a gift. Truly."

Lenna smiled, a watery thing that made Sandor want to growl. Instead, he shifted and hoisted Addy to his shoulders. She wrapped her little legs around his neck and fisted tiny hands in his hair.

"Are we going to stand on this fucking beach all day?" he rasped, and Tyrion smirked again, shaking his shoulders as he straightened to his full height.

"You all must be tired," he said carefully. Sandor noticed the brooch on his black jerkin, a hand gripping a circle, the very copy of the one that Ned Stark used to wear, that Tywin Lannister had worn. "Please," he said, giving a courtly gesture of invitation, "follow me. You are all very welcome."

Jon Snow had watched Lenna and Tyrion broodingly, and now he cut his eyes over to Sandor. He shrugged. It only made Snow's face darken the more, but then again, Sandor thought, all he did was brood. But who was Sandor Clegane to criticize a man for sulking.

Tyrion extended an arm in invitation, but Lenna slipped her fingers in Sandor's, much to his grim satisfaction, and followed him up the steep approach to the castle.

Sandor didn't like the place. It was all jagged blades of black rock, cold and uninviting. He wasn't exactly known for caring about his surroundings, but there was something sinister and dripping about the place that made his bones buzz. He felt pushed off-center, almost like he'd stumbled, his stomach seizing in the second before he lost his footing. He wrapped a hand around Addy's chubby leg and leaned into the solid warmth of her and the whisper of Lenna's fingers in his own.

The climb up the stairs that led to the Keep itself was long, but Sandor didn't mind. It could go on forever for all he cared. The longer they climbed the longer it would take before she had to step forward and put herself into the mire again.

He only vaguely regretted the choice words he had muttered to her on the way. He wasn't proud of himself for it, knew there was nothing either of them could do, not really. Expecting her to throw up her hands and bow out of this mess, to retreat to White Harbor with her eyes closed and her ears plugged was not an option, even if she had wanted to do it. And that was really what prompted his murmured ill-humor, the knowledge that she wouldn't even if she could.

For someone who professed to have no honor, he certainly admired hers. Even when it drove them all straight back in the the gaping maw of the unknown.

He looked around them as they passed into Dragonstone's Great Hall. It was a bleak and unwelcoming place, and it wasn't just the lack of decoration on the walls, the smell of abandonment and decay. Nothing could have made the place feel warm, could have warded off the damp chill that crept up his spine. All black and somber gray, except for the sheen of white, the hair of the young woman standing on the dais.

Daenerys Stormborn was a small creature, lovelier than he expected, but cold and haughty. There was no mistaking who she was from the almost chiseled order of her long, pearlescent hair to the prim folding of her hands before her or the proud tilt of her jaw. She watched the company with veiled eyes so blue they were almost the color of columbines, her skin as pale as her hair, her delicate mouth only a shade warmer than the rest of her.

She was dressed in leather and fur, a short dress over leggings and sturdy black boots, a large silver brooch styled after her family's sigil at her shoulder. She was so still that Sandor could almost imagine she was carved out of the rocks themselves, a funerary statue instead of a person.

"Your grace," Tyrion said, breaking the silence that had crept like the surface of a frozen lake before them, "may I present my friend, Helenna Manderly of White Harbor, and Jon Snow, commander of the Night's Watch. They have come to talk with you per our request."

The Targaryen girl flicked her eyes from one to the other. Lenna made her courtier's curtsey, and Jon Snow bobbed awkwardly from the waist, his cheek pinked. Sandor nearly grunted in disgust.

"Welcome to Dragonstone," she said softly, her voice mild and darker than he'd expected, more like a brown ale than a honeyed wine. Her tone was soft, her lips barely moving, but her cheeks lifted. She smiled, but it didn't quite warm her eyes.

Sandor felt his hackles rise.

"Lord Tyrion has spoken of you highly and quite often," Daenerys said with a sharp twitch of her nearly translucent brow.

"Tyrion always gave me more credit than I deserved," Lenna said, and Sandor forced himself not to correct her. His wife had lowered her head, looking at the young woman from beneath modestly lowered lashes.

"You almost single-handedly brokered peace in the Seven Kingdoms," Daenerys said with the mildest tone of incredulity. "You stopped a war."

"I did my duty," Lenna replied quietly.

"To the North," Daenerys said with a lift of her brow, more than a suggestion.

"To the realm," Lenna said, her voice gentle but firm.

Daenerys nodded once, then took a few steps in their direction. Her gaze flitted over the rest of the group, barely resting on Sandor. She lingered on Jon Snow, but the boy kept his furrowed gaze on the tips of her boots.

"Indeed," Daenerys said. "I hope your stay will be comfortable."

"We are indebted to your grace's hospitality," Lenna said with sincerity. Daenerys looked at her from the corner of her eye, but nodded, just a hint of a smile playing around her lips. When she turned, Sandor thought how strange it would that her sigil be a dragon. Dragons were full of flame, hot, consuming flame, but this girl was as cold as the snows that blanketed the North and as wintry as Jon Snow's damned wall and just as opaque.

A/N: Another half chapter, but it's what I could put together given the circumstances. Thank you all for continuing to read and review! This isn't the most exciting chapter, but we're rolling along. I hope to have another installment up this time next week. No promises, though!


	61. Chapter 61

Lenna LXI

Her nails were biting into her palms as she made her way from the Chamber of the Painted Table to her own rooms. Her footfalls sounded like the sharp retort of arrows against the stone, each one intensifying the ache that was steadily spreading from her neck to her head, a red veil of anger and anguish and utter frustration. She was seething, her shoulders thrown back in an attempt to maintain her dignity and remain above her feelings. The feeling of helplessness, of rage, was every bit as powerful as it had been in her last years in King's Landing, and now she leaned on every ounce of self-control she possessed not to let it bubble up, not to let the mask slip for even a moment. It was all she could do to walk from that room once the talks were over instead of upending the precious map table and pushing Daenerys Targaryen out the open colonnade and into the choppy waters of Blackwater Bay.

"Lenna."

His voice was dark, much darker than she remembered, only slightly smoother than Sandor's gravelly rasp. She bit her tongue and took a deep breath, not turning around and not stopping. She heard his footfalls following her, his gait double-speed to keep up with her.

"Lenna, you must-"

His hand was on her elbow, and there was a tremor in his stubby fingers. She turned to look at Tyrion with an anger that she had never before directed at him. He was much changed, she found, to her disappointment. She had some inkling of it when he met them on the shoreline, but his behavior, his thoughts and his words over the past week had sent her into a maelstrom of worry and sorry. The Tyrion Lannister that she knew had been sardonic, gently cruel in his way, but he hadn't been what he was now.

 _But none of us are_ , she thought bitterly. She had listened with her heart bleeding in her throat when he told her what had passed since their last meeting. Since the Blackwater and his triumph on King's Landing's walls. He had been beaten and bruised, imprisoned and then exiled. She shook her head in futile disapproval when she heard of Cersei's treatment of him after Joffrey's death, of how she had sent assassins after him in the wake of Tywin's death. She had always thought there was something unhinged in Cersei's nature, but she had never thought sister would actively turn on brother.

And now it appeared that the brother was fighting back. At all costs, and, to Lenna's eye, without any thought to the repercussions.

She turned her face to him, and he took a step back at the expression. Her skin felt tight across her own cheeks, her jaw clenched and her temples beginning to throb. Perhaps some of his old self had survived. He almost quailed, looking smaller than ever as he shrank from the indignation in her face, her chin tilted up and her eyes ablaze.

"Can we at least discuss this?" he asked with some of his old geniality, his hands worrying each other as he clasped them across his stomach.

"It has already been discussed," Lenna spat, words clipped and perfunctory. Without warmth of any kind. "It has been discussed to _death_ , Tyrion, and speaking more on the matter will not sway me. Nothing you can say will change my mind."

Tyrion looked around uncomfortably, perhaps even a little afraid, but he seized Lenna by the elbow again and pulled her along the dripping passageways until they reached his own door. He pushed it open and drew her in, throwing it closed behind her. It landed with a hollow thunk, and for a moment she could see wildfire dancing on the walls.

Refusing to look at him, shaking the memory from her head, she paced before his hearth, the flames dancing in a fashion that should have been merry but was instead sinister. The shapes they cast on the walls were dark and contorted, and Lenna wanted nothing more than to just _leave_ , consequences be damned.

"I know that you are troubled-" Tyrion began, looking up at her with those damn doleful eyes. She let out a harsh breath of mirthless laughter.

"Troubled," she said with more eveness than she felt, taking a step toward him. "Troubled doesn't even begin to encapsulate my feelings, Tyrion. You asked me here to treat with your _queen_ ," she said. "Instead, we are being given orders that we will not- mark my words- we will _not_ obey."

He spread his hands, just as he always had when he was entreating her to be reasonable. As if she had ever been anything but reasonable, just not always willing to acquiesce to their malice, their subterfuge. "It is for-"

"Do not have the audacity, Tyrion Lannister, to tell me that this proposed invasion is for the good the realm," she said, her tongue quick and precise even as her thoughts were still in a morass. "This is for no one's good but hers. And yours, perhaps. We- the realm and the people- are stable. The wars are over."

"Thanks to you."

"Yes," she chuffed, not caring about her bloody modesty for a moment. She had given everything she had to them, and she was tired of pretending that she hadn't. Ten years spent a captive to preserve her family, hardship on the road, the sacrifice of her happiness and her future to try to save her home from them. And she had suffered alone for much of the worst of it, administering White Harbor as her father lay sightless and motionless in his bed, her brothers dead and her husband gone, Lenna the unexpected heir to White Harbor. And then she had come here to this ill-omened place with her child and new-found husband with her, unable to stand being separated from them yet again, and her rage at the idea that Tyrion Lannister, her old friend and teacher, was willingly and knowingly bringing danger and death to them again was unspeakable.

She wanted to strike him. To strangle him. She could still remember, in horror, the way it had felt to slip a knife through Grag Locke's throat, the way his blood had welled up like a spring and warmed her hands in the chilly night, sticky and vital. She hadn't wanted to kill him, hadn't even meant to, but she was now looking at Tyrion Lannister wondering how she could get away with it and survive.

She couldn't, and half a moment later she was ashamed she'd even thought it. Not for the first time, and certainly not for the last, she cursed the fact that she loved against her will.

Instead of striking out against him, she tempered herself. Taking a deep gulp of the dank air and checking her body, ratcheting the knobs of her spine up one at a time to gain some feeling of control, of agency.

"I have always acted and spoken in what I thought was the best interest of this realm," she said. "So you must understand, Tyrion, why I cannot counsel Lady Sansa to accept your proposal."

"There is a threat coming from the North," he said softly, a color to his voice that told her just how difficult he was finding it to actually deliver what were undoubtedly rehearsed negotiations.

"Don't threaten me, Tyrion," she said in the same tone she'd use to correct Addy. "We know full well what is coming. As much as we may and more than you. And it would have been a good thing to be allied with this girl, but-"

"She is not some _girl_. She is the rightful queen of the Seven Kingdoms," he replied hotly.

"According to whom?" Lenna asked with her head cocked. "The Annals? The Lineages? The long dusty lists of dead men? Her father was deposed, Tyrion. He was a despot, and mad to boot. The people rose up against him in support of Robert Baratheon. It is not the first time that a dynasty has risen and fallen, and simply being _born_ does not give her rights to the Iron Throne."

"If you knew her-" he tried, again stepping toward her in half-supplication.

"I do not wish to," Lenna replied acidly.

"She wants to love her people."

"Before roasting King's Landing alive or after?" Lenna asked with more spite than she meant to reveal, contempt making her shiver. "To think that you would even think of supporting such an idea. Your own _nephew_ is King."

"He is not a Baratheon," Tyrion thundered, and it took even Lenna a little aback. "We both know that he is not Robert Baratheon's son."

"No," she said softly. "Of course he isn't, Tyrion. Not by blood. He's your own brother's. Your own sister's. So he is your nephew twice over. He may not be a Baratheon, Tyrion, but by the gods, he is a good and just King. His wife is a caring and benevolent queen. They have stabilized a realm that was reeling from the ill-deeds of your _own house_ , and now we are whole again, even in the face of winter. United. The North independent but part of the whole, the Reach, the Crownlands, the Stormlands, _Dorne_ all sending food and supplies. The poor of our cities fed and clothed. Our armies one army. Lords from every part of Westeros represented on the Small Council. Tyrion, we have built what you and I only talked of." Tyrion looked away, unable or unwilling to acknowledge the truth of it. How many nights had they bantered about this, about their history, their future, the foibles in the annals lessons from which to learn. She shook her head, wondering if it had all just been an exercise in cunning to him, a joke. It had never been to her. "This girl talks of rocking us to our foundation once again, with winter here and war on the horizon," she said tiredly, the spark of her ire faded like an ember or a setting sun. "We cannot even entertain the idea of supporting Daenerys Targaryen under the current circumstances."

"If you would-" he tried again, but she could tell his heart was not in it.

"There is no gain to be had from it, Tyrion. At least, not for us." Her temper had cooled and she found herself chilled. It was a constant problem at Dragonstone, the moisture from the walls seeping to the floor, the rooms freezing and damp. Lenna felt as if she could never be warm, not even buried in the furs of her bed with her toes and fingers like ice shrouded branches. She wrapped her arms tightly around herself and waited for Tyrion to turn over what she had said.

"What, exactly, are you implying, old friend?" Tyrion was looking up at her with nostrils flared, obviously wounded. He was blinking rapidly as if fighting tears.

"I'm not implying anything," she said. "I think we both know what this is all about, really."

Tyrion turned from her on his heel, his hands flexing as he held them behind him. He walked briskly the length of the room once, twice, then a third time, and when he stopped the look on his face was devastated.

"If you think this is petty vengeance-"

"I do not think there is anything petty about it," Lenna said soothingly, her tone at odds with her meaning. "You are talking about potentially destroying the lives of thousands of your own people. Though perhaps the reason could be called petty by some, I would not be so dismissive of you. Of what they've done to you."

"I did not join Daenerys because I am seeking revenge." His hands were balled up into knobby fists at his thighs.

"Oh, really? Why then?" She sat down in the chair at his desk to be closer to his eye level. He would not look at her. "It wasn't because you believe in her espoused ideals. If anyone would know that Tyrion Lannister was a secret altruist, it would be me. A master administrator, oh yes, that he is, but not an altruist. Her professed love of the common people, the downtrodden- you don't care about those things. I know you better than most, do I not? In all our years of study and debate and friendship, you have never lied to me about who you are. About what you are."

"And what is that?" he asked heatedly.

"A player," she said quietly. "You have always, _always_ been a part of this game. And, Seven bless you, you tried so hard to teach me, to help me. I was stuck in it and had no idea what to do. And you guided me. Don't you hear yourself in my words now, Tyrion? Don't you see your own advice in everything I have done?" He looked at her like she had stabbed him in the gut. "But more than that," she said even more softly. "You, my dear Tyrion, are a Lannister."

Tyrion laughed hollowly. "Hear me roar."

Lenna closed her eyes and looked down, her hair falling heavily over her shoulder. She had styled it in the Northern fashion, the way she had as a girl, two waves twisted to keep it back from her face, the locks falling heavy and long almost to her waist. Strange that they should find themselves here now, Lenna the sage instructor, Tyrion the chastened pupil. The mad glint of his eye had been dulled, filed away by suffering, and she felt old, older than the cold stones of the Keep itself.

"You are right," he said lowly, turning his eye to her with a measure of defiance but overwhelming hurt. His voice was low and broken, like an unraveling skein of fine thread. "I am not altruistic. But I do not seek to kill my sister, or my brother, or my nephew-"

"But you will if you continue with this plan," she said. There was no other outcome. If Daenerys Targaryen did as she said she would, if she took King's Landing with her three dragons and her army of Unsullied warriors, his whole family- her family, in a terrible way- would all die. By flame or by sword. "Why, Tyrion? Why in the seven hells are you advising her?"

It had been nagging at her since the first time he had written, since she had seen the Targaryen girl's name in his hand.

"What else am I supposed to do?" he pleaded, hands outstretched again but this time in supplication. She had never seen him rendered so hopeless, so helpless. "There's a bounty on my head, Lenna. Cersei forced me out of King's Landing after the trial, even though I was found innocent. Even if it isn't an official attaintment, that doesn't mean it's less effective. We both know that she sent someone trailing me, looking for me. She won't be satisfied until I am dead, until I have paid what she thinks I owe."

Lenna could not argue the accuracy of this and it made her sigh with sorrow.

"You could have come to me," she said quietly. "You could have come to White Harbor just as Sansa did."

"And my welcome in the North would have been warmer than Meereen? I don't think so," he scoffed.

"For what it is worth," Lenna said quietly, "I would have seen to it. But it is far, far too late to discuss it now."

"Indeed," he said, rubbing his hands across his eyes. "It is too late."

Lenna felt as if a chasm had suddenly opened up before her, as if an earthquake had rent a hole in the chamber floor, rocky and jagged and pitch, pitch black.

"What did you expect us to say?" Lenna asked, looking at Tyrion across it and feeling so alone and weary she wanted to fall into the pit and simply cease to be.

"I don't know," he said gruffly. _An arrow in the dark_ , she thought glumly. She knew what he had wanted. He wanted her to fix it. How had comforting him or Cersei or even Jaime Lannister turned into bandaging the realm for them?

"She doesn't want to wait," Lenna said carefully. "But if we could only convince her to delay any invasion. To put it off until this threat in the North is dealt with."

Tyrion was pacing again, this time his eyes darting quickly from place to place, the old familiar sign that he was deep in scheming. Lenna felt the fissure between them shrink, just a little.

He stroked his beard, pulling at the bristles until Lenna was sure he was in pain. Then he turned on his heel with precision and his mistmatched eyes met hers.

"You will speak with her," he said quietly. "You alone."

Lenna scoffed. "I have spoken plenty."

"You will bargain for her, just as you did the Iron Throne. Lenna, she doesn't know what she's doing, not really."

"Clearly," Lenna said with an arched brow and a twisted lip. "She's listening to you and Varys."

Tyrion pursed his lips at the jab. "She needs guidance. She doesn't understand the game."

"You are a far better teacher, then, if she wants to play it."

"No," he said forcefully. "The game has changed. The rules are different and I don't know what I'm doing. This Westeros, this realm, it isn't the same one I grew up in, the one that I left. You and Olenna and Margaery and Sansa- you rewrote the rules."

Lenna shook her head. "I'm not so important as all that," she said. "But you are right. This is a different realm. And surely you can understand why we will not quietly comply with something we feel is so wrong."

"I can't change her mind," Tyrion said. "She believes that the people of Westeros have wished for her return. She was raised believing it."

"Is she mad, Tyrion?" Lenna asked. The question had been worrying her, the girl's strange behavior and cool detachment stirring wariness in her entrails.

"I don't know," he said at last. "I don't think so. Not in the way that you mean." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "If you could ask her for one thing, what would it be?"

Lenna did not hesitate. "To help us defeat the Night King and the armies of the dead. The rest can be dealt with later. We need dragonglass. Dragons would be an unexpected boon, too."

"She is prepared to allow the mining to begin," Tyrion said. "She needs support here in the Seven Kingdoms. She can lend that much, but she will need Houses to stand with her when the time comes."

"House Manderly will not be among them," Lenna said quietly with a brief shake of her head. "Nor will House Stark. We are the Independent North. We will keep our ties to the Crown strong to maintain that autonomy. We will not bend the knee. Never again."

"She has been told as much." Tyrion said.

"And?" Lenna asked. "I do not support the idea of deposing the King, Tyrion. Not for any circumstances. But I know enough to see that there is little I can do if she-if you- have determined to invade. What of the aftermath, hm?"

"She knows that she will have a difficult time currying favor when she takes the throne," he replied, and Lenna shuddered at the confidence in his voice. "She has said that she is open to the idea of the North maintaining its independence. If it complies."

"I cannot-"

"She's been told, Lenna-"

"Yes, but has she listened?" Lenna asked. The girl was young, no more than eighteen or twenty, and Lenna remembered herself at that age. She would not have listened, she would have been convinced that she was right, that there were no other angles from which to view the circumstances. She would have been full of a righteous fire. "She cannot truly believe that we have been waiting for her return all these years. She has not come back by our invitation. How exactly does she think she will be received here?

Tyrion did not look at her, his hands still clasped tight behind his back as he stared at the dark stones of the floor. "She will need _assurances_ ," he said flatly. The web of understanding between them tightened and Lenna took a step back in wounded anger.

"I do not lie, Tyrion Lannister," she replied coolly. It had always been their most insurmountable difference. "I will not start doing so now."

Tyrion looked at her suddenly with his palms open in entreaty. "I am not asking you to lie, Lenna," he said quietly. "Just to...mould the truth."

Lenna's eyes narrowed. "The girl isn't stupid, Tyrion."

"She hears what she wants to hear," he replied, his face open.

"It is not up to me or you," Lenna replied. "There are many others to consider."

For a moment, she had allowed herself to be caught in Tyrion's fantasy, that together they could decide the direction of this war, of the realm itself. True, she had been an influence, an advisor, in unexpected and unlooked for ways. She often thought of it with incredulity, the way in which she had been caught in the whirlpool, her head above the water but still trapped in the currents. But it was folly for her to believe that she alone could sway a queen, could make the decision.

Margaery and Tommen. Prince Doran in Dorne. Her aunt, Olenna Tyrell. The Starks in Winterfell and even the Greyjoys in the Iron Islands. The Iron Bank. Not to mention, Cersei still played a significant role in her son's reign. All of them would have to be summoned, would have to be involved. Lenna nor Tyrion could ever truly control what would happen when, and if they came together.

The best course of events would see them all gathered at the same table, each with their own churlish self-interest

"Call them," he said firmly. "Call them together and broker a deal for the time being."

Lenna felt her heart drop into her stomach with a cold plop. It wouldn't work. She knew beyond a doubt that it wouldn't work, not in the long term. But it could at least staunch the wound for a time.

She nodded haggardly and took her leave without another word, spending the next few hours walking the castle by herself. Sandor was in the yards, Addy with him. Jon Snow doted on her, and Lenna remembered that he had always had a soft spot for the little ones.

She was standing in the gallery watching her husband warming up his sword hand while Jon Snow built a snowcastle with her daughter, and her heart clenched. There was so much at stake, she could not just sail away knowing the Dragon Queen would come for King's Landing, and then she would come for the North. She could not let it happen.

Against her better judgement, Lenna went to the door of Chamber of the Painted Table and raised her hand, knocking firmly at the door and holding her breath as it swung open.

Sandor LXI

Ravens went out immediately to King's Landing and Winterfell, to Dorne and to Highgarden. He'd watched in mute disapproval as Lenna wrote them herself, her hand the same flowing script it had always been, though these brief, diplomatic missives were free of the blots of her youth.

He kept an eye on her with concern. She was looking waxen and gray these days, the strain of whatever it was she was plotting with Tyrion Lannister settling on her shoulders like a yoke. She was constantly sick, as well. She wouldn't eat anything in the mornings, her chin trembling at even a whiff of the hard cheese and bread that constituted Dragonstone's rather meager breakfast offerings. She had explained to him that it was normal, but it didn't make it easier to watch her grow thin when he had thought she would grow round. She needed rest and good food, and she was getting neither. It only added to her weariness, her ability to leave their chambers each morning and do her work having more to do with the iron will she secreted behind her soft voice than any real energy. He hated to see how she would seem to wither when she entered their chambers at night, so tired and grieved that she couldn't speak, only bonelessly rest against him with her lips against his neck.

He hated even more to look on as she kept her courtier's mask in place, laughing gaily and smiling with sparkling eyes. No one else seemed to notice the purpling beneath them except for him, or the way her clavicles stood out like bony wings from her shoulders, ribs riding gently beneath her skin when they should be invisible. There was nothing to be done for it, her purpose was clear though it did not sit well with him to watch her interactions with Daenerys Targaryen. The Dragon Queen had seemed to him a frosty, cruel sort when she first appeared, but now Sandor detected something much more dangerous in the girl's demeanor. The haughtiness was born of desperation, the sardonic twitch of her lip and brow nothing more than lack of conviction. She didn't have a fucking clue what she was doing, that much was clear to him. She had gone about retaking her empire in the way a child might gather toys into an army, a patchwork hodgepodge of mismatched objects with only one thing in common: her.

It was like building a foundation in the sand.

She obviously had her supporters. Tyrion Lannister followed at her heels like a nervous father, and old Jorah Mormont was giving Jon Snow stiff competition for brooding. Sandor did not like the man, especially not the way he looked at the young Daenerys.

 _She's nothing but a child_ , he thought derisively. Still, Mormont trailed her with the abject dedication of an old dog.

He'd seen the dragons, felt the hot huff of their breath against his skin. They were his old nightmares made flesh, huge and hideous and only held in check by the flick of a girl's wrist. Daenerys was proud of them, as fiercely as if they were her children, and she had wanted to show them off. Drogon was by far the largest and most unruly, and it seemed to him that the girl had a special fondness for him that didn't extend to the other two, Rhaegal and Viserion. It was unnatural to watch her stroke the scaly neck, her face as soft as a mother's looking at her newborn, and Sandor had hung back from the crowd with Addy on his shoulders, even as Lenna walked with the Dragon Queen and laid her own hand on the enormous, bony snout of Rhaegal.

She had walked away with a tension in her face that told him the feat itself was hardwon.

Daenerys had been pleased with the interaction, almost jubilant when Rhaegal sniffed about Jon Snow and bumped his shoulder the same way a horse might. The young man looked like he was about to shit himself, but the little Targaryen had been ecstatic. Sandor wondered who else saw the way Daenerys Targaryen looked at Jon Snow, even though the young man didn't seem to return the interest. He was far too busy brooding, on what Sandor did not know.

It hadn't taken Lenna long to win Daenerys over. It shouldn't have surprised him. She had made Cersei Lannister love her, and this girl was starved for affection, reaching out and grabbing at whatever fear or love and kindness was pushed her way. She took to Lenna quickly. Like a child. And while he wasn't exactly proud of her for it, he wasn't ashamed either. He merely resented what it did to her, making nice with the Targaryen princess.

"She's not unlike Sansa," Lenna said one evening. They'd been on Dragonstone for a long week, and he was smoothing out her hair, running his fingers through the long curls before rebraiding it. She was leaning against him, melting into his chest as he went about his work, her head resting in the hollow of his shoulder, eyes closed and rimmed in darkness. She had been sleeping poorly and she was sick almost all of the time.

"Never cared for how much trouble you put yourself in for her, either," he rumbled darkly. He cursed to himself that he'd been happy to get her away from Sansa, only now the replacement seemed to him far worse. Her lip twitched.

"She's young," she said instead, though he was sure that she took his meaning. "And naive to how things work. And unlike Sansa, she thinks that she can just reorder the world to suit her needs. If there's something she doesn't like, she just knocks it over."

"Like a child," Sandor said without malice. "A stupid, selfish child."

Lenna did not contradict him, and he knew she wouldn't. He knew what she really thought.

"She thinks she's doing the right thing," Lenna said hollowly, a crease between her brows. She shook her head. "I can't make her other than what she is," she said tiredly. He had been thinking on that himself lately. Her comments about the young Targaryen wanting to reorder the world had reminded him of another royal child, another person Lenna tried to temper with soft words and a gentle hand.

It hadn't stopped Joffrey from being a tyrant, for all he had cuddled into Lenna's bosom and heard her stories. In the end, he'd brought down pain and terror on any who crossed him, who told him the truth he didn't want to hear. The only thing that had stopped him was treachery of his own caliber, and Sandor knew that Lenna would never be involved in such, Targaryen or Stark or Lannister.

He chased away the thoughts as she reached for him, her cold fingers icy against his neck. He didn't care. He drew her to him eagerly, wrapping her legs around his waist as she turned in his lap. He always preferred her like this, face to face with her astride his hips, even from the first. She was running her hands across his shoulders in that single-minded way she did when she just wanted to forget.

There was little enough he could do for her. He could at least give her this.

His fingers undid the lacings of her gown and his mouth found the soft place at the joining of her shoulder and neck. She reached between them and put him in his proper place, rocking against him slowly with her skirts rucked up around her waist as he palmed her breast and worried one pebbled nipple, the other hand still raking through her hair in long strokes that mimicked her movements. He dragged his fingers over her ribs, gripped her hips, then made his way beneath her shift to find the spot that made her quake. He timed his work with the methodical and leisurely pace of her hips, relishing it when she crested in a long, langourous shudder that throbbed around him until he joined her in a few drawn-out strokes.

She slept almost immediately, and he hoped she wouldn't wake until morning. There were too many times that he woke to her shifting against him, restless and sweaty. She would rise and pace as quietly as she could, her arms hugging her ribcage and her brow furrowed, the lines visible even in the dark in contrast with the almost shocking pallor of her skin. He would watch her sometimes through slitted eyes, and she was like a ghost to him.

The rocking of the ship seemed to soothe her, and she slept like the dead on the voyage from Dragonstone to King's Landing. It was only a day's journey, and she kept to their cabin beneath the furs of the rough bed, her hair spread out in a messy could across the pillow. Sandor had taken Addy above with him, intent on giving her the opportunity to rest before whatever it was they were sailing toward came to pass.

Margaery Tyrell welcomed them, a lone figure on the wharf. Sandor had not seen the queen before, and even he was struck by her feline beauty, but more than that, he liked the way she eagerly embraced Lenna, bending her nut-brown head to Lenna's near-black. She was speaking soft and low so that Sandor couldn't hear, but she looked up at him with a tight smile once Lenna had nodded. Then she reached out for Addy with slender arms and tucked the child onto her hip with a gay peal of laughter that was utterly at odds with Lenna's solemn and drawn face.

"What is it?" he asked, his palm skimming the small of her back.

"They are waiting," she said quietly. "We are not to waste any time."

It was strange to be back in the small council chamber after so much time. The room itself was exactly the same, but the faces that surrounded the table were different. Most of them, anyway.

Olenna Tyrell and Jaime Lannister, Prince Oberyn Martell of Dorne, slimy Petyr Baelish, a sweaty, rotund young man with thinning hair that seemed dreadfully uncomfortable. When Jon Snow saw him, Sandor didn't think he'd ever seen the young northern bastard show such enthusiasm before, nearly shouting with laughter and thumping the bashfully smiling interloper across the shoulders.

And then there was the slim young girl with great green eyes that Sandor had never seen before. She looked quite out of place in the gathering of advisors, her fingers nervously fidgeting with her pink silk gown, her hair a curtain of gold, bright and undulating. Something about her seemed familiar, but he couldn't place her. Then she looked at him full in the face and smiled widely.

"Myrcella," Lenna breathed beside him, and the girl sprang to her feet and rushed into Lenna's arms while a war of tears and smiles was waged across her pretty features. Sandor felt like he'd been hit with a warhammer.

"Dear Lenna," she said intently, tears flowing down her cheeks. "I came with Prince Oberyn. I haven't been home in so long, and imagine my surprise to learn that you would be here." Lenna rocked her with genuine pleasure, her hands ghosting over the young woman's long hair, the finely sculpted lines of her face. The girl turned to look at him. "And you, Clegane. I am so happy to see you. I have missed you."

It was a strange thing to be embraced by a princess in front of all those shuttered faces, but Sandor couldn't help but wrap an arm awkwardly around the girl's back when she flung both her arms around his neck and laid a kiss on his cheek. She pulled away from him dabbing at her cheeks and laughing, turning back to Lenna and squeezing her hand.

"I cannot stay," she said, "but I hope we may find time to talk."

Lenna nodded, her teeth worrying into her lip as Sandor watched her eyes gleam with unshed tears. The girl flitted from the room and Lenna let out a rending sound that was half-sob, half-laugh, and sat down heavily in the chair next to Jaime Lannister. There was no seat for Sandor and he hung back awkwardly, making for the door himself. Lenna caught him, slim fingers on his wrist.

"He stays," she said quietly, and no one argued.

It was exhausting listening and watching as they bantered back and forth, the future of the realm reduced to something like a child's ball being batted up and down the table. He was surprised that for the majority of the meeting Lenna remained silent. Her hands were quietly folded in her lap, her head cocked slightly in the direction of whichever of the little lords or ladies was speaking, and her eyes were resting on the surface of the table. He wondered what it sounded like inside her head when she did that, what it was she was thinking, or if she was thinking at all.

There were many opinions laid out on that table, and Sandor didn't like the pettiness of most of them. It all sounded like fucking bullshit, no matter how they dressed it up.

"I have yet to hear any real evidence that this threat beyond the Wall actually exists," Oberyn Martell said, his tone almost bored. "For all we know, it's a tactic thought up by this Dragon Queen to draw us north while she invades the south."

"He is real," Jon Snow replied, his dark eyes sober. "I have seen him myself."

"And you have already met with the Targaryen girl," Baelish riposted. "Who is to say you aren't in league with her? That you haven't already brokered a deal with her?"

"He hasn't," Lenna said, clearing her throat after a long silence. "And the Night King is real. He, or rather it, always has been. We've just been careful to hide away the stories."

"Explain to me how a child's tutor came to sit on the small cou-"

"Enough of that Petyr Baelish," Olenna said imperiously, Baelish's smug face going stony at the interruption. "Your presence here is merely suffered because of your long history serving the King's family."

Lenna's eyes cut quickly at her aunt and Sandor thought he saw her lips part. Petyr Baelish's mouth was set in a hard line, the point of his beard trembling.

"It has always been there," Lenna said. "In the annals. In the histories."

"Yes," said a tremulous voice. All eyes turned on the portly young man next to Jon Snow. His face bore the expression of a concerned owl, but he withdrew a series of scrolls and put them on the table. "I brought some."

Oberyn Martell reached for them first, unrolling the parchments and scanning the contents, rolling his eyes and tossing them back onto the table.

"Fairy stories," he said dismissively. "And nothing we haven't already heard. Dragonglass and dragonsteel. Nothing to prove that-"

"I killed one," the young man said quietly. "North of the Wall. With a dragonglass knife."

That drew everyone's attention. Oberyn looked at him with faint pity, as if indulging him.

"Were there any witnesses?" he asked amicably, though derision lurked just beneath the quirk of his lip. "How do you know it was one of these White Walkers and not some wildling?"

"Its eyes," he said quietly. "They were glowing blue."

A tense silence fell over them. When Sandor glanced around, he saw Petyr Baelish was chuckling and shaking his head.

"I've seen them myself," Jon Snow said quietly. "If you won't believe Sam, perhaps you'll believe me."

Margaery turned her eyes on Lenna. "Do you believe them, cousin?"

Lenna took a deep breath. "I do," she replied so lowly he almost couldn't hear her. "And I think the longer we sit here debating whether or not they exist wastes the precious short time we have to come up with some sort of plan."

"What do you mean, the precious short time?" Oberyn was outwardly befuddled, deep crevices carved around his mouth as he frowned, dark eyes narrowed. A quick glance around the table saw all of them taken aback.

Lenna glanced up at Sandor with an glimmer in her eye that he could only describe as apology.

"Before she arrives."

A pause like a gasp fell, and Sandor was grateful for the wall behind his back.

"She?" Jaime said lowly. The Kingslayer had hardly said a word throughout the meeting, though Sandor had caught his eye on more than one occasion. Jaime Lannister was looking to him for indications of what he should think, and that didn't sit well.

 _Gods, we're probably fucked_ , he thought bleakly.

Lenna took a deep breath, running her hands over her knees and leaving a trail of perspiration on the silk.

"Daenerys Targaryen has agreed to stall her invasion for a time," she said firmly. "She expects a raven from me within the next two days. If she does not receive one, she will come herself."

Sandor wanted to punch the wall. She hadn't breathed a word of it to him, but the strain he saw written in her every movement was now explained. The faces of those seated around the table were incredulously blank, as if wiped clean of their haughtiness, their own designs.

"It was the best I could do," she said in a rush. "She is willing to help us if we can come up with some manner of accord. We need the dragonglass at Dragonstone. We need the _dragons_ ," she took a breath, "or at the very least, we need to delay their coming until suitable defenses have been mounted and the threat in the north has been adequately dealt with."

"How?" Oberyn demanded. "This is not-"

"No," Lenna said quickly, "of course it isn't what you expected. It is what none of us expected. This girl is convinced that she is in the right, that she deserves the throne. She is King Aerys' daughter, she is sister to Prince Rhaegar. She has three bloody dragons. Some kind of accord needs to be offered to her." Lenna paused and wiped a hand across her brow. "It doesn't need to be perfect. We just need _something._ "

"And what do you suggest," Oberyn said. Olenna Tyrell was looking at her niece steadfastly, and it occurred to Sandor that she was just as at a loss as the rest of them. Perhaps for the first time.

Lenna took three deep breaths, her breast rising and falling with effort.

"We sign a document agreeing to hold off on hostilities until after the threat in the North is dealt with. A document with _assurances_."

"That we don't intend to keep," Oberyn said hotly. "Dorne will not-"

"Good," Lenna said quickly. "It would not do for us all to seem to agree to it. Dorne should not participate if they do not wish to. But," she said with a labored pause, "you will, of course, be busy preparing to oppose her invasion."

"How so?"

"The Northern houses will fight. The Crown will fight. We will fight alongside each other, with Daenerys and her men. She thinks it will gain support for her cause in Westeros, and she is likely right," Lenna said quietly. "Her biggest obstacle is not whether or not she can take King's Landing. Believe me, she can." Sandor grunted. He'd seen the giant fuckers with his own eyes, calm as kittens at the tiny girl's commands. "Her challenge is getting the people on her side. As we have all experienced, the support of the smallfolk is integral to the success of a monarch. Aerys lost it, Robert Baratheon gained it; Joffrey lost it, Tommen and Margaery have gained it. This is not some petty squabble. She needs this engagement as much as we do, just for different purposes."

"She needs it to secure her throne," Olenna said in the most neutral tone that had ever, "and we need it to secure a throne to fight for."

Lenna nodded. "I explained to her that if she does not help, there will be nothing for her to be queen over."

Something like an icy wave coursed down his back.

"So, Dorne will stand in opposition to the accord," Lenna said. "And while we are fighting in the North, Prince Oberyn will begin to mount preparations for our defense in the aftermath."

"You would put us between you," Oberyn spat.

"She does not have sufficient forces to launch a two-pronged attack," Lenna said flatly. "She will pick one, and only one. And she will pick banding with us to fight in the North. We will worry about the fallout once we win."

"If you win," the Prince said drily.

"If we don't," Lenna replied tartly, "your brother can style himself king. Just like you all have always wanted. If we lose, there will be none of us left: Baratheon, Lannister, Stark, or Targaryen. We will all of us be dead. Or worse."

Oberyn leaned back, temporarily mollified. "What needs to be done?"

"Weapons that can stop a dragon," Lenna replied succinctly. "Well-trained forces and food."

"I have some things that can help, too," the round little man Jon Snow had called Sam interjected. "I found some books in Old Town. Plans for scorpions and the like."

Lenna turned her eyes on her cousin and the king. They had both been silent through the whole exchange, watching with wary eyes and listening avidly.

"Your grace," Lenna said quietly, Tommen's young face turning to her. "To move forward, we must have your agreement."

Tommen looked back at Lenna for a long moment, then his jaw tensed and he nodded sharply, just once. Lenna collapsed back in her chair and Sandor felt like going to his knees.

A/N: I'm procrastinating. Hopefully this one is more satisfactory. Please read and review!


	62. Chapter 62

Lenna LXII

"I had wondered when our paths would cross."

Lenna stopped midstride. King's Landing was still comfortably warm despite the turning of the season from autumn to winter, and she was taking full advantage of the afternoon sunshine to meander through the passageways of the Keep. Sandor was in the training yards and Addy was toddling along beside her, chubby legs seeming to grow longer by the day. Lenna greedily lapped up the time she had to spend with her daughter outside the small council room. The breaks were short and infrequent, but she felt lighter with the little hand in hers. Now, as the familiar voice broke over her ears, her grip on Addy's hand tightened instinctively and her hard-won ease again became nearly debilitating tension.

With a quick shake of her head, she steeled herself and turned to look at Cersei.

The dowager queen was flanked by two guards, but as soon as Lenna faced her she dismissed them with the familiar flick of her hand. Lenna could not read her face, not entirely, but it wasn't as cold as she had feared it would be. Or as cruel. Lenna wondered for a moment if she had lost the ability to read her, but the marks of grief that Cersei didn't bother to hide assuaged Lenna's worry.

Always beautiful, but always hard, like she was carved from some golden stone. Lenna had marveled at it so many years ago, how Cersei had seemed to glow with the same strange luminescence as Casterly Rock, the impenetrable fortress unbelievably beautiful in the kind light of the Westerlands. She had that gleam to her now, but Lenna saw it for what it was.

Hurt. A fair bit of fear. The sharp lines of her face set carefully as she looked back at Lenna, everything about her so carefully controlled that someone else might have missed the strange, delicate tremor that seemed to radiate from her.

Lenna did not miss it, and against her will, her heart clenched.

Pain. Lenna knew something of it herself, that deliberate calm that overtook her when she felt she was about to shatter outward. Of course Cersei would be nervous. She wasn't as powerful as she had once been, stripped of authority, reduced to almost nothing. She had fallen even in the time between Lenna's last trip to King's Landing when she had still held the reins of the monarchy. No more. Cersei had not been invited to any of the negotiations, a fact that had surprised Lenna at first. She'd almost asked, but a gruff shake of Jaime Lannister's head had stopped her.

Tommen, it seemed, had distanced himself from his mother's influence after the North gained its independence and the various lords bought him out of penury.

"He blames her," Jaime said quietly as he held the door open for Lenna after the first meeting. "You very well may not see her. She keeps largely to her quarters these days."

Lenna had frowned at that, too aware of how such would be devastating to Cersei. Joffrey dead, Myrcella in Dorne, and Tommen, the only one of her children still near her, turned away from her.

Cersei looked much the same as she had when Lenna last saw her. She was dressed in a gown of rich green and silver, her hair still falling like a shimmering waterfall over her narrow shoulders. She looked thinner than Lenna remembered, her cheekbones sharp as cut crystal, her eyes hard as the beryls they resembled.

"You've seen Myrcella, I take it? Cersei asked flatly, taking a step toward Lenna. A hot thread of panic flared in her blood. Cersei noted it with a wry tendril of a smile. "I mean you no harm, Lenna."

Lenna took a steadying breath, her grip tightening on Addy's little hand in hers.

"Aye," she replied. "I saw her yesterday when we arrived."

"She's much grown," Cersei said, her gaze resting on Addy in unconcealed examination. "Your little beauty is growing, too."

To Lenna's discomfort, Cersei crouched on the flagstones to peer in Addy's dear face. There was pain in Cersei's expression, but there was also admiration. Addy, innocent as she was, looked back fearlessly into her face with her gray eyes wide and trusting.

"What's your name, little one?" Cersei asked sweetly, tapping the tip of one long finger against Addy's chubby cheek.

"Addy," she replied stolidly. For all she was Lenna's child as much as she was Sandor's, she had a double-share of their earnestness.

"How old are you, sweetling?" Cersei asked, and Lenna took a breath.

"Two," she answered, holding up the correct number of fat fingers awkwardly.

"You're a fine girl," Cersei said, standing up and turning her eyes on Lenna again. "Smart, just like your mother."

Lenna managed a weak smile at that

"I won't keep you," Cersei said lowly, her brows knitted together. "Times like these are precious, especially to the likes of us."

Lenna felt a cool rush of realization trickle down her spine and through her limbs. Standing and looking at Cersei, erect and fragile in the center of the passageway with her hands folded demurely at her stomach, felt like looking at her own reflection.

"Yes," Lenna managed to choke. "They are, aren't they?"

Cersei nodded once, then unexpectedly reached out and touched Lenna's elbow, her eyes averted, before she turned away and walked back the way she had come, her slim fingers resting against her lips.

The encounter shook Lenna, and she again thought of being a child and caught in the undertow on the sea-strand. It had felt like an eternity spent drowning though it couldn't possible have been more than seconds, but as her little body struck the sand again and again time stood stretched on to the infinite, and each time she thought her head was going to break the water's surface only to be pulled down again. It had felt like forever.

She could almost taste the seawater in her mouth and feel it stinging her eyes as she went about the rest of the day, her limbs moving as if through a sucking tide, her body heavy as if weighed down by the weight of water. She thought she would perish as she lay in bed that night, Sandor's familiar bulk beside her, and she compulsively reached for his hand as if he could haul her out of the abyss.

"Mm?" he uttered sleepily, rolling an inch in her direction. He was tired, too, these days. It was odd to think of Sandor and Jaime Lannister working together, but that was the reality. It was even stranger thinking of Brienne of Tarth there along with them, the three of them tackling the task of welding together an army from the remnants of warring houses. It was a monumental job to bring together fighting men that were used to seeing each other as adversaries rather than allies, but at least the three of them were modeling that foreign and difficult civility. She knew that Sandor could barely stand the sight of Jaime Lannister, but he kept his mouth shut and did his work. There were frequent fights that Lenna knew of, and more than once Sandor had come back to their rooms with his knuckles wrapped from some fisticuffs he'd broken up with his own hands, but never was he the aggressor.

"Am I like her?" Lenna asked suddenly, feeling only faintly guilty at waking him. Her voice cracked like ice in the darkness and she felt cold all over, turning into his side for warmth. His eyes were closed, but she knew he wasn't asleep anymore, his nostrils were flared and his jaw tense. She wondered if he pretended to rest as often as she did, but she doubted it. He'd always had the talent for sleeping like a rock, born of so many years of hard living. Now, he was sprawled on his stomach, face buried in the pillow so that she could only see the unscarred half of his face. He lifted his head and heaved himself onto his side to look at her in the dim light from the dying fire.

"No," he said lowly. His face was smooth with practiced patience, the gray eyes glinting silver like pools of still water. "You could never be like her."

Lenna took in a deep breath, her lungs burning as if filled with brine. "I saw her today."

She had kept it from him, though it bothered her. There hadn't been a good opportunity to tell him, to talk through it in his hearing and listen to his reaction. She honestly had no idea how he would respond to it.

He propped himself up on his elbow abruptly, concern and anger transforming his face into a snarled mess of flesh and shadow.

"Why?" he barked, the muscles across his shoulders rippling beneath his skin as he leaned toward her.

Lenna shook her head, not afraid of him or his sudden anger. She could feel the concern radiating from him, the desperation. If he was anything like her, he was thinking of all the years in the Red Keep that he'd spent watching for her, counseling her through every tense interaction with the Lannister queen. She bit her lip. "I didn't go looking for her. It was accidental."

"Nothing she does is accidental," he said fiercely. "She does nothing without purpose."

"She was walking, Sandor," Lenna said quietly. She truly did not believe that Cersei had been looking for her, could not fathom why she would be. "Just as I was."

"What did she say?" he demanded. They could have been standing in an alcove ten years earlier, the tone was so familiar and yet almost forgotten. So, Lenna told him simply, recounting what in any other circumstances would have been an ordinary exchange between two old acquaintances.

He fell back against the pillows when she was finished, staring up at the ceiling, the scar taut and shadowed.

"You are not like her, Lenna," he said at last, a tightness in his voice that made her shudder. _Control_ , she thought, _iron control tempered with rage_. "You never have been. You never could be."

"How am I any different?" she asked breathlessly, anguish welling up beneath her breast and making her breath come faster. "I wheedle and manipulate- how did I get here? How did we even come to be here?"

She could feel herself growing light-headed, unable to control the rapid rise and fall of her breast, the great gasps of air simply not enough to keep her from feeling as if she was drowning. She felt as if her bones had been invaded with locusts, gnawing and buzzing and tapping their sharp feet, the flutter of their wings as metallic and sharp as the retort of clashing swords and thrusting pikes.

"Stop it," he said lowly in a voice like gravel and silk, and then he was above her. He slid his hands into both of hers, resting them on either side of her head. She shook her head and bit her lip, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes. "Stop it, Lenna. Just breath for fuck's sake."

His gaze held hers tight and she clung to it like a line tossed into a stormy sea. His fingers tightened in hers and she focused on the feeling of his palms against hers, the weight of his body above her, the warm that radiated from him. He had regained most of his former breadth, a few months of good food and ample rest filling out the enormous frame that had been so diminished when he had stumbled into Winterfell's courtyard. He'd found his old brash ways, too, the gruff and vulgar manner. In short, he was more or less himself, even as she felt her own self slipping further and further away, a ghost fading into the past.

Nevertheless, she calmed. As she found her breath, he released her, drawing a hand down the side of her face, through her hair where it was spread beneath them on the pillows.

"You do not wheedle," he said quietly. "At least, not in the way you think you mean. You have done nothing dishonest. You have nothing to be ashamed of. You have done nothing wrong."

She wanted to believe him, and when he leaned down to press his mouth against hers she leaned into him forcefully, her eyes clenched shut. He murmured to her, nothing of consequence, just snippets of comfort, of love, as his hands did most of his work. He ran his fingers through the hair at her temple, brushed his lips along the line of her neck, laying them against her pulse and clavicles with a touch so light it had her arching into him.

He was relentless, just as he always was, hands and mouth and growling voice in her ears. He made her to forget, just as he had so many years earlier, and he was still stroking her hair when she finally fell asleep, the steady thump of his heart beneath her ear a comforting, steady rhythm.

She sent the raven to Dragonstone the next morning, writing quickly and rolling the parchment with deliberation so she didn't have time to change her mind. She was still disquieted by the whole ordeal, Sandor's words the night before only barely successful in calming her.

It shouldn't have surprised her to follow her feet and discover the familiar red doors of the Keep's library before her, but it did. She reached out a hand to push open the door, taking a deep breath as she stepped into the cool shadows that had been her friends for so long.

She might have been there an hour, perhaps more, simply walking the shelves in the shafts of chill winter sunlight that flowed like mead, shimmering with swirling dust like snow, when she heard the latch at the door open and then close again.

She tensed as she listened to the soft footsteps on the stone floors. They were light, a lady's slippers, but too quick to be Cersei. Lenna straightened her shoulders, preparing to meet whoever was in her sanctuary, and a slim figure came around the shelves, hooded and clutching a book.

A red book.

"Lenna," the figure breathed, and the hood came down to reveal the summer-bright hair and fair features of Myrcella Baratheon. "I had hoped you might be here."

Lenna felt her throat close and took a few steps closer to her old charge. "Yes, your grace."

"They told me that you hadn't been seen since breakfast, and Clegane was in the yards. I was hoping that we could talk."

"Of course, your grace," she managed. Myrcella's brilliant expression dimmer a little and she looked askance at the floor, her fingers going white against the red leather binding.

"I brought this back," Myrcella said quietly. "For your daughter to have."

Lenna looked at her in shock. "My daughter-"

"Father told me," Myrcella said shortly. Lenna narrowed her eyes in confusion.

"Father?"

"Yes," Myrcella replied earnestly. "My father, Lenna. Jaime Lannister."

Lenna reached out blindly for something to hold onto lest she end up in a heap on the library's floors. She leaned heavily against the reading table behind her, the very same where the two of them had spent so many happy hours, Sandor rigid-backed with on foot resting against the wall, his head thrown back and eyes glittering, watching as she and the little princess studied and spun tales.

"I see that you know, too," Myrcella said, licking her lips quickly, the golden brow creased.

"Aye," Lenna replied, suddenly afraid that this was some sort of confrontation, that the girl thought she had been lying to her, had kept such a thing from her. "But I didn't know, not for years." _Not a lie_ , she thought wildly. She hadn't truly known, though she had suspected long before the child left the capital.

"It's alright," Myrcella said, green eyes shimmering as she placed her hand on Lenna's. She had come very near, and Lenna was not at all surprised to discover that they were nearly the same height. Cersei and Jaime were tall. It followed that their daughter would be, as well. "I mean that, truly. And it's not why I've come besides."

Myrcella smiled, a sad thing, and took Lenna's hand in hers, drawing her toward the window ledge and its piles of dusty pillows. Everything was just as she'd left it.

"It doesn't look like anyone has been here in ages," Myrcella said lightly, folding her hands in her lap. "It looks exactly the same. It certainly smells the same."

Lenna smiled at that. "Aye, but much has changed."

Myrcella must have sensed that Lenna was speaking of her as she tightened her fingers around Lenna's. Her fingers were slim and small, but it was a woman's hand that Lenna held, not a child's.

"Yes," Myrcella said seriously. "It has."

"Dorne," Lenna said abruptly, casting about for something to talk about. She was wary of talking to Myrcella about the state of affairs, and she wondered how much Myrcella knew of it to begin with. "How do you find it?"

"I like it very much," Myrcella replied with a bright smile. "It is beautiful and my hosts have been very kind."

"Your prince," Lenna said quietly with a weak smile, remembering the girl she had been before she left and her dreams of a handsome husband.

"Everything that a prince should be," Myrcella said with a silvery peal of laughter and Lenna felt the bloom of genuine joy. "I actually look forward to our wedding, though I fear it shall be some time before that happens."

"You are what, sixteen?" Lenna asked. "Surely-"

"It will wait," Myrcella said with a rueful shake of her head. "Until...after."

Lenna froze.

"Trystane is a good man," Myrcella continued shyly, affection putting blooms in her cheeks. "And I will be happy to be a princess of Dorne, I think. All the sunshine and the lemon trees."

"And the Martells-" Lenna prompted.

"Are kind," she replied readily, guilelessly. "I am glad that Prince Oberyn was open to my accompanying him." She lifted a brow archly, a conspiratorial smirk on her lips. "My betrothed was not particularly pleased, let me tell you."

"The timing-" Lenna said, but Myrcella interrupted her before she could finish the thought.

"It had been so long since I'd been home," Myrcella said, and Lenna heard the deep sorrow in her voice. "I missed my family. I had no idea that the day I sailed away would be the last I saw of grandfather, or of Uncle Tyrion. Or even of Joffrey."

Her face tightened and her throat worked, and Lenna wondered at her.

"And I missed you so desperately, Lenna," she said, her voice choked. "And when you didn't respond to my letters-"

"Letters?" Lenna asked in disbelief. Myrcella looked up at her surprise, then shook her head with a hollow laugh.

"Of course," she said, dashing the tears from her eyes with pale fingers. "Of course she would keep my letters from you."

Lenna felt that ancient, cold anger beating against her ribs.

"I did not receive your letters, your grace," she managed to say, "else I would have answered them."

"I know," Myrcella said, sniffing loudly. "I know that. Which is why I am not angry, and have not been in some time."

It hurt Lenna deeply to think that Myrcella had even once believed that she had been forgotten by her old teacher. The idea of the young girl so far away, so alone, and feeling as if she was abandoned made her want to cry in earnest.

"It was one of the first clues," Myrcella continued. "Clues to what I am. What she is."

Lenna cocked her head.

"My mother," Myrcella continued. "My father. She was jealous of you, always."

"Yes," Lenna said.

"Uncle Tyrion wanted to send you to Dorne with me," Myrcella said hotly, a child again. "If she had let him-"

"No," Lenna interrupted, wondering why she would leap to Cersei's defense even in this matter. "No, your grace. Your mother did many wrongs, but she did not keep me from going to Dorne with you. That was my choice."

"Clegane," Myrcella said with a small smile, cutting her eyes at her old teacher. "I was young then, but do you know, I always fancied that you were in love with each other. Even when I was a little girl." It was Lenna's turn to blush, and she kept her eyes on the floor. Myrcella noted it and laughed, continuing on in girlish glee. "I made up stories about you both in my head, cast him in the role of the silently devoted lover, you as the virtuous lady. A paragon of courtly love. Doomed, star-crossed. There's a picture, here in this book," she said, opening the red cover. The binding was coming apart at the seams from long use, and Myrcella found the illustration she was looking for with long practiced ease. The corners were worn and shiny with handling, the vellum flaking. "This one," she said with a hard, tight smile. "I would look at it when I was missing you, both of you. Because that's what you looked like to me."

It was an illustration Lenna knew well, one that she had thought of herself many times in the years since. The knight looking at his lady as they both pretended to be other than what they were.

Lenna traced her finger over the familiar figure of the knight, then raised her hand to cup the princess' cheek.

"And we missed you," Lenna said. In a way, it was Myrcella that had brought them together, thrown into that queer friendship as they watched her grow, though the pull between them had been there since the beginning. She remembered suggesting the princess' name for a bairn of their own, how even his craggy face had gone soft. "We both did, very much. But I am happy, so fiercely happy, that you were safe and away."

Myrcella nodded and her face took on a maturity that left Lenna breathless. "It was for the best. I understand that nothing has been easy since, and I can't help but be glad that I was away. I wish you could come back with me, though, especially now."

The girl fell silent, a long, curling lock of her hair falling over her shoulder. The book was still spread wide in her lap. With a sudden snap, Myrcella closed the book's covers and held it out to Lenna with her green eyes bright with purpose.

"Take it," she said with the same false brightness that had been Lenna's shield for so long. It made her want to weep to see the same pleasing and manufactured smile overtake the younger woman's face. "I wanted you to have it back. Just in case."

 _Just in case we never meet again_.

Lenna looked at her sadly, but she took the book. It seemed heavier in her hands than it had all those years ago. It had been almost a part of her, that damned volume, and now it was foreign and weighty in her hands.

"I must go," Myrcella said quickly, wiping her eyes again. "When you read it to your little girl, think of me."

She kissed Lenna's cheek briefly, and then she was gone in a flash of bright silk and even brighter hair, leaving Lenna with the red leather soft and smooth under hands, feeling as if she'd been drained dry again, a shore left barren by the fleeing tide.

Sandor LXII

"I never wanted to see you again, but here you fucking are."

Sandor smirked into the ale, and if he had been another man he might have gotten to his feet and clapped the smaller, wiry fellow to him like a brother.

Instead he scowled.

"Not keen to see your smug face again, either."

Bronn laughed lustily and took the bench opposite, catching his foot sending him flailing and pulling a roar of malicious laughter from Sandor's gut. He was already drunk, the cunt.

Sandor didn't know why he'd followed his feet into Flea Bottom, but when Lenna and Addy had drifted off to sleep, he'd found his way down to his old haunts. The eerie sensation of walking backward through time had dulled his senses at first, Sandor wondering if he had dreamed the last four years and if was still some hulking guard at the palace with a soft spot for a highborn maid that necessitated regular bouts of drunken brawling. The houses all looked the same, and the barkeeps barely registered surprise at seeing him after such a long absence. The long face of the man seated across from him was likewise unperturbed, as if they had just had a drink the week prior rather than last meeting years earlier.

"Where the fuck you been?" Sandor growled. He hated to admit it, but he often wondered what it was he'd gotten up to after the Blackwater. He half imagined him whoring his way through King's Landing a hero, but the other thoughts were darker. There had been no news of Tyrion's sellsword, of course. Sandor had imagined him dead in the sand, to be quite honest, a smug smile dully dancing on his roguish face. It wasn't a happy thought, but it was a fitting end for men like them. Sandor hadn't envied him, though.

"Sent on an errand," the other man said with a quick clearing of his throat, reminding Sandor that he was, in fact, still alive. "Been around."

"Going North." It wasn't a question, but a statement of fact. If Bronn of the Blackwater was still in fighting shape, he'd be joining the fray against the strange creatures beyond the Wall and hungering for the battle.

"That's fucking obvious, isn't it?" Bronn said with a quirk of the brow. "Of course, I am. That's where the fun will be."

Sandor grunted at him. He didn't know how much fun he thought they'd be having. It was a great triumph, the agreement of the lords and the alliance they'd built with Daenerys Targaryen- that Lenna had built- but it meant another long war ahead.

All he wanted to do was retreat to White Harbor and watch his wife grow round with his babe.

"And you, Clegane? Still panting after your Northern maid?"

Bronn was lucky Sandor was feeling forgiving. He'd left Lenna asleep in their room, Addy curled up in the bed beside her. The child slept in the nursery, but when both of them had fallen asleep after dinner, the red book spread between them as Addy leaned against her mother's breast, he couldn't bear to wake them. He liked looking at them like that, together, the two dark heads bent together, the child reflected in the mother, the hardness in him softening like heated iron, growing malleable as something in him shifted and changed into something better and stronger. He'd never been a man for religion, but he thought he understood some of Lenna's piety when he saw them snuggled up together, some innate and shining care radiating from Lenna into their girl like heat from a hearthfire. For some reason beyond his ken, his throat thickened and he had to fight against weeping when he saw them like that, both humbled to witness it and made an outsider by the intimacy he could not name or share in.

"Fuck you, sellsword," he growled and pushed the image away from him, and the other man laughed.

"Sailing with the company then?" Bronn continued, draining his tankard and clunking it down on the table to signal for another. A barmaid obliged, and Bronn leered at her, the deep dimples in his cheeks giving him such a lascivious look that Sandor was certain the girl's blush was not from flattery but discomfort.

"Aye," Sandor replied. "Lenna will go as far as Winterfell, then I'll go North with the armies."

And icy silence spilled across the table like a spilled mug of beer. It was so thick that Sandor could almost feel it, cold anger radiating back at him from the smaller man across the table with such ferocity that his sword-hand twitched.

"Winterfell," Bronn said flatly, with such lack of expression that it pulled Sandor's gaze to his face. The sellsword's rough features were long and stringy with disapprobation, so suddenly and uncharacteristically that Sandor felt unmoored.

"Aye," he replied, his tone even and low. It was galling to be discussing his private business with the blackguard to begin with, but he didn't know what to do with the other man's anger. _None of his fucking business_. "She's advisor to Sansa Stark."

"No," Bronn said lowly, the finality in his tone like an executioner's blade. "You will not send her there. Not she and the babe."

His head went up at that. "What do you-"

"Saw her when last she was here," Bronn said, his voice shaking. Sandor sat back on the bench and laid his tankard down. "Held that girl of yours in my own arms. Assured your wife that you weren't dead. _Me,_ of all people, offering your woman pretty lies. Where the fuck were you anyway?" He didn't pause long enough for Sandor to make an answer even though his tongue and pride were ready. "And here you are talking about sending her to fucking _Winterfell_?"

Never outspoken or one to mince words, Sandor felt peculiarly bereft of epithets to hurl at his old comrade. There was fire in the other man's eyes that Sandor wasn't used to facing.

Bronn of the Blackwater was not afraid of him, and never had been.

"She has responsibilities," he replied through clenched teeth, and it sounded mealy-mouthed in his own ears. Like something a cunt lordling would say.

"Fuck responsibilities," Bronn said in return. "What of your responsibility to her? To that child?"

Sandor mulled on that for a handful of awkward, long minutes while Bronn swilled the rest of his lukewarm ale. With a sharp clatter, the sellsword threw the tankard down and pushed back from the table, the bench scraping unpleasantly against the stone floor.

"I've said it once, and I'll say it again, you great fucking idiot," Bronn snarled, looking down his crooked nose. "I wish I'd stolen the lady myself. At least then she'd be safe, and you can bet your shit-arsed hide that she'd be far and away from whatever evil we're walking into. I have half a mind to steal her now. You sure as fuck don't deserve her if this is what you're-"

"Shut the fuck up," Sandor said quietly, anger leeching the marrow from his bones. He felt the battle-rage rising. "Shut your fucking mouth, sellsword."

"I knew you were a dumb cunt, but I didn't think you were a fucking idiot," Bronn continued, his tone taunting and full of disdainful laughter. Sandor slowly got to his feet. The sellsword's neck was tight and extended, tendons straining red against his rough, tanned skin. His face was twisted up in anger, but his eyes were blazing, never leaving Sandor's own.

"I'm warning you-" Sandor said, and he felt the threat warming his blood to a boil.

"Warn me all the fuck you like," Bronn nearly shouted, "but damned if I'm not going to give you what you deserved all those years ago."

"I'd like to see you try," Sandor replied, hands finding the underside of the table, fingers tensed at the ready.

"Better than you've done," Bronn said. "You failed her then, and you'll fail her now. All you've ever done."

Flipping the table took very little effort for a man of his size and strength. He had wagered it would be enough to offset the sellsword so that he could land a good punch into that smug face, but he underestimated how agile the other man was. Bronn sidestepped the careening table and the clattering benches as deftly as a cat, circling to keep the obstacle between them.

"I didn't fail her," Sandor rasped, his throat tight in pain. _Except you did_.

"You didn't save her," Bronne returned, whole body tense. "You kept letting her go back to them. Kept letting them sink their fucking claws into her back, pull her down again. Too much of a coward to do what needed to be done, to take her away and keep her away. And then you fucking _left_ her. You _walked away_."

It hurt more than he thought possible, to hear it from another man's throat. It was one thing to have it circling endlessly through his head all of this time, the guilt and the shame and the slippery, oily cowardice. He had convinced himself that he'd done what he had to do, had believed her when she encouraged him to ride out with Robb Stark's men, had believed the old monk on the Quiet Isle, had believed her again when she said he was forgiven, that he'd done as he needed.

Except that he hadn't. He hadn't done what he'd needed, he'd followed his own damn pride. Her sworn shield, he should have stayed with her, even if it meant his own punishment, but he'd been too desperate to _prove_ himself that he'd ridden away and almost not ridden back.

And now he was going to do it again, only this time, the threat to Helenna Manderly and their children was very real and much more unpredictable than some grasping lions in the South. The contrast between the two situations was almost comical. Human men he could kill, but the sellsword was right. Whatever evil they were marching to meet was not human, and if they fell to him, which they probably would, Winterfell would meet swift destruction along with all of its inhabitants.

Despite hearing the sellsword, Sandor's rage was up, and he managed to seize the other man by the throat, lifting him on to his tiptoes. He had no words to hurl into the man's face, but he stood there looking at him as his face went red and purple, hard hands scrabbling Sandor's grip. He almost felt as if it wasn't his hand on the man's neck at all, that he was outside of himself.

"Let him go."

Sandor's grip relaxed immediately and he turned slightly to see Jaime Lannister and Brienne of Tarth standing in the alehouse. The barkeeper was cowering behind the bar, his black head slowly peeping over his shelter to see if the altercation was over. Sandor looked about him and took stock of the upended table and benches, the spilled tankards, the pools of ale darkening the old flagstones like blood.

"He damn near killed me," Bronn rasped, rubbing his neck and looking between the other two in annoyance. "You were almost too late."

It was Sandor's turn to be annoyed. He narrowed his eyes as he regarded the three somber faces before him. They each met his eye unflinchingly.

"Did you succeed?" Jaime asked, turning his attention back to Bronn. The sellsword spat on the ground.

"I don't know. Did I, Clegane?"

"What the fuck-" he began.

"You listen," Brienne said harshly, taking a step toward him. She was nearly his height, and Sandor wasn't used to having to look someone in the eye like that. He took a half-step back. "You are not going to bring your wife and child with you back to Winterfell. She must stay here."

"I'm not leaving her with the damn Lannisters-" he snarled, gesturing wildly and indistinctly with an arm that still didn't feel as if it belonged to him.

"Somewhere else, then. Somewhere safe. Clegane, she is _carrying your child_." Sandor took another step back but could not look away from Tarth's blue eyes. The woman's homely face softened and her tone changed from accusatory to cajoling. "Clegane. Please. She cannot go to Winterfell."

"Lady Sansa," he said weakly, the argument unravelling like old rope.

"There must always be a Stark in Winterfell," Brienne replied lowly. "It is her family's duty, not Lady Helenna's. Not yours."

Jaime Lannister glanced at him, handsome face drawn in pain. "I have made arrangements for Lenna. She can go to Dorne with Myrcella. Prince Oberyn readily agreed."

Sandor knew his wife better than any and he shook his head. "She will not consent, she would never go." _Lemon trees and sunshine_.

"Then you must convince her," Jaime said urgently. "Where we are going is no place for her, for Addy. For the babe."

"How?" he asked the air.

"She told me," Brienne replied. "Jaime and I had already been discussing it, how to keep her out of it, but when she told me that she was with child again, I knew we had to do something, and quickly."

Sandor looked down at his hands. They were curled up into fists and he wanted to pummel something. _Doing your bloody job for you, old dog_.

"Dorne," he said flatly. _It could be worse. She could be dead._

"She can be of use there," Jaime continued placatingly. "She can continue to serve as emissary. Keep up the ruse that she's brokering an alliance between Daenerys Targaryen and the Martells. She can help with the preparations for what comes _after_."

"If there is an after," Bronn said darkly, and Sandor took in a deep breath through his nostrils. _You will never see her round with your babe_ , he thought forlornly, but then brushed the protest away with impatience. Better to never see that than see her and the children dead. Or worse, to die before them and be able to do nothing to help them. At least in sending them away he would be, in some way, protecting her.

 _Only vows you ever took were to keep her safe_ , he thought, and it was true. That first, unwilling oath in Cersei's solar. The pledge in the wood to be her sworn shield. His marriage vows. All to her, and all to safeguard her protection.

Sandor grunted, spent and weary. "I'll try."

"You had better fucking succeed," Bronn replied, pushing his finger into the center of Sandor's chest. He was lucky the fight had fled from his bones. "And one more thing, Clegane."

He had opened his mouth to demand what more he wanted when Bronn's fist collided with his right cheek. Pain bloomed like a rose through his face and he pulled his hand away scarlet with blood. From the way his bones were still vibrating, he thought it likely to bruise. Instead of retaliating, he looked back at the sellsword dispassionately. Jaime Lannister and the Tarth woman were looking between the two of them warily, as if waiting to step in again to keep them apart.

"I have wanted to do that for fucking years," Bronn said with a hint of his old smirk, shaking out his hand, knuckles purple from the impact.

Sandor didn't reply, just turned on his heel and stalked back through the dark streets of Flea Bottom toward the Keep, his mind burning like a wildfire as he unwillfully listened to the words the vows he had once made ringing through his head, one after another, like the tolling of the bells in Sept before a siege began.

A/N: So, best laid plans and all that...the direction I had originally planned on going just didn't feel right, so we'll see what happens along this path instead. Flying by the seat of my pants, but that's the fun bit about writing in installments. 3-4 more chapters should do it, I think, but who am I to say. Never thought I'd be sitting at 62 chapters and almost 450k words.

Thank you to everyone who still reads and comments. Your words keep me ambling toward the finish line. I do believe in happy endings. After all, the whole reason I started this thing was to give one of my favorite characters the ending I felt he deserved but was most certainly not going to get.

Hope everyone is well! I'll be casting about for ideas for new projects here soon, so if you've something you'd like to see, let me know. I take suggestions to heart. Be well.


	63. Chapter 63

Lenna LXIII

To her consternation, Tyrion had been right all those years before. Dorne was beautiful and warm, washed in radiant sunlight and shaded by the dark, glossy leaves of countless lemon trees, the fruits shining from the branches like little suns. The gardens of Sunspear were spectacular, and she spent as much time in them as she possibly could. Addy took delight in running up and down the stone pathways with Myrcella trailing behind her, their joined laughter ringing off the warm stone walkways like music. She didn't have the energy to join them. This babe was sapping her in a way Addy never had, and that didn't even take into account the heaviness that had settled on her shoulders when the ship left King's Landing on a gray morning, her husband's enormous frame shrinking away until he disappeared altogether, tears cool on her cheek. In an effort to alleviate the pain, Lenna would sit on the sun-warmed stone walls as they played, her head tilted toward the blazing sung as she concentrated on the feeling of warmth on her skin, heavy like the weight of a palm on her cheek. When she closed her eyes tight and sat thus, she could almost imagine that it was his fingers on her jaw and not just the sunlight, and the heaviness would descend anew.

She might have been in Dorne in body, her skin changing from its perpetual paleness to a faint honey-gold in the Southern sun, but her mind and spirit were thousands of miles North, swirling with the snow and the ice. At night she dreamed of him, saw him stumbling through the snowdrifts, his hair frozen against his face, his breath coming in great clouds that turned his dark, bushy beard as white as her father's. She would wake cold and shivering in her bed hung with light silks, her hand pressed to the top of her growing belly and tears leaking from the corners of her eyes though she had long ago grown too tired to cry in earnest.

She had been three months in Dorne, and every morning she woke and wondered where she was, wondered why she wasn't where she felt that she should be. Then she would see the brightly colored bed-hangings and the filigreed screens on the window, rosy dawn spilling across her floor like the glow of the strange citrus fruits that grew fat and golden in the gardens. Every detail was delicate and beautiful, and she had certainly dreamed of such a place as a girl. The calls of exotic birds filled the room softly, and breezes perfumed with jasmine and sweet balm wafted through the open archways of the windows. There were no shutters on them. There was no need.

But, for all its beauties and its charms, the hospitality of her hosts, and her understanding of why it was she had been sent to Dorne rather than returning North, it was not where she wanted to be. She had caught Prince Oberyn watching her with concern on more than one occasion, his darkly handsome features made somber when they were usually amiable, full lips made narrow with worry.

It was not without cause. For all Dorne was lush and gorgeous, the reminders of what was happening thousands of miles away were never ending. The ravens were unceasing, their sturdy black bodies an ominous contrast to their gay surroundings when she chanced to spot one arriving, cold dread encasing her heart like a cage. The messages were always brought directly to Prince Doran, and she had taken to heading for the small council room even before she was called. Several times she had surprised him, already seated in her spot as emissary before he'd even dispatched his runners. Without a word, he would merely hand the scrolls over for her to read and her heart would freeze again.

Destruction. Utter destruction. An army of the dead that could only be defeated by dragonglass or Valyrian steel. There was plenty of dragonglass being funnelled through her own White Harbor, the ships moving up the White Knife as far North as possible before the weapons were transported overland to the fighting at the Wall. The reports from Castle Black were bleak, but the army of the dead had been held back, kept behind the centuries-old fortification of the Wall and out of Northern lands.

For now.

The people were evacuated south, and reports of thieving and reaving were disheartening and maddening as thousands poured into the Crownlands and the Westerlands from points north with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Winterfell, Sansa wrote, had been made into a center of command, the smallfolk almost entirely gone except for a few trusted servants who would not, or could not, leave.

There were bright moments, of course. Victories, though small ones, and the reappearance of Bran Stark. Reported dead during in the Greyjoy siege years earlier, Sansa wrote that he had suddenly returned with Meera Reed, though according to his sister he was much changed. Lenna found it in herself to smile at the tidings, remembering the adventurous lad that he'd been and the terrible accident that had befallen him, the pall it had cast over them.

It had been an ill-omen that they hadn't had the sense at the time to read.

But it was the lack of news about Sandor and his companions that left Lenna most content, if such a feeling could be called joyful. No news was the best news, and her heart leaped into her throat every time Prince Doran appeared with the scrolls, her eyes darting for the tell-tale black ribbon and never finding it, to her honest pleasure.

Despite the brilliant weather, the clear, blindingly blue skies and the warm southern breezes, Lenna's days were colorless, lusterless, but it was a comfort to have Myrcella near. The princess had been overwrought with joy when she was informed that Lenna would be joining them. It had been the one of the most difficult performances of her life, she thought later, pretending to be glad to attend the Dornish court, to represent the realm and serve as liaison during the war with the North.

The decision was, in her mind, a hasty one. She had awoken in their rooms some few days before they were due to sail north, Addy still in the bed beside her. By the time she had returned from settling the little girl in her own bed in the nursery, Sandor had returned. He smelled faintly of ale, but he was not drunk. She had not seen him intoxicated in years, though he still regularly enjoyed a skin of Dornish sour and a pitcher of ale. No, Sandor Clegane was in some state of high feeling, but he wasn't intoxicated.

He was standing in the center of the room, staring into the fire. His shoulders were hunched and drooping, his head low and his chin nearly brushing his chest, the long hair cast over his features so that Lenna could not see them even when she walked to face him.

"You're to go to Dorne." The words were brittle from his lips, and while she could see the reflection of the fire in his eyes, she could not read his expression.

"Nonsense," she replied with a dry laugh. "I'm recalled to Winterfell. With you."

"You're to go to Dorne," he repeated, each word so heavy that she almost missed the entreaty in them.

"Sandor, what are you-"

"You are to go to talk with Doran," he continued, cutting her off. It was something he seldom did. She quickly closed her mouth and settled her hands before her, eyes cast on the flagstones. Whatever it was he was trying to say was difficult for him, almost rehearsed. "There are matters for you to attend there. Preparations for after."

"I am not the best candidate-" she protested reasonably, slamming her courtier's mask back in place to stave off the trembling in her belly.

"It has been decided," he said flatly, and it made her blood flare with ire.

"By whom? Certainly not by me," she protested with equal equanimity.

"By me," he replied, flicking at his nose with his thumb and avoiding her eye until he no longer could. His gray eyes were dead as steel. She had never seen that expression in them before. When he spoke, his lips barely moved. "You will not come north again, Lenna. Not until this is over."

She choked on a bark of laughter. "Sandor, I am not afraid-"

"No," he replied quietly, "but I am."

That quelled her indignation as quickly as sand poured on a flame kills the embers. She felt thrown off balance, as if a tide had sucked away the sand from beneath her feet. He had never admitted to fear before, and even when face with that he feared most, Sandor Clegane did not back down from a confrontation. Her stomach trembled that he might know something that she did not, and she held his eye even as she shook her head and took a step backwards.

"If we cannot hold them back," he replied carefully, each word a fight, "Winterfell will be the first Keep to fall." He was slowly approaching her, his hands raised as it to soothe her or to protect himself. She did not know which. "If we cannot hold them back, I will not be able to protect you, or Addy, or the babe."

"Sansa-" she began, thinking of the Wardeness alone in her Keep, surrounded by the snowfields.

"Sansa is not a mother," he said without rancor. Icy water ran through her like the froze rapids of the White Knife. "She is the Wardeness of the North, and if it becomes too dangerous, then she will flee south to protect her people. That could be months from now. You will not be able to flee if you are close to birth, Lenna. You are sick all the time as it is. Sansa's duty is to her people. Yours is to our children."

"It will pass," she said weakly, but she heard the reason in his words. She had continued her backwards path until she bumped into the window ledge, her hands bracing there reflexively. She looked down at her hands on the stone as if they didn't belong to her, the fingertips white where she pressed them strenuously against the casement. She lifted her eyes to him again, feeling desperation rising in her. _Home_ , she thought wildly. "I am the Lady of White Harbor, at least let me go to my father."

"No," he said with a firm shake of his head and a press of his lips. "No, you'll be as far from this war as possible. I made a promise long ago to keep you out of it, and your father would not agree to your coming North. Dorne. Prince Oberyn has already agreed. The King has agreed."

"When was all of this being discussed?" she asked in genuine confusion, hearing the pitch of her voice rise in such a way that made her feel juvenile, like some irate old maid. "Who brought it on themselves to-"

"Jaime Lannister and Brienne of Tarth," he replied. "Since you told the Tarth woman about the babe." He paused for a long, tense moment. "I'm ashamed I didn't think of it myself."

Lenna took a deep breath and watched the leaping flames. She had confided in Brienne when she was sure, past the third moon, wanting someone, _anyone_ , to share in the joy she felt. It was evident that this plan of theirs, concocted behind her back, was an act of care, and she was honored that her well-being should be of such concern in times like these, but there was a part of her that could not help but smart at the implication that they could not talk openly about such a course of action with her, that they didn't trust her enough to listen.

 _You wouldn't have listened_ , she thought woodenly.

"And you," she said, almost a sob. "I shall be far from you again."

"Aye," he replied. "You shall be, and the better for it."

She thought she might vomit, indignation and resentment building up in her like bile. She could almost taste her own anger, torn between hurt and rage that she was being told what she should do. Even if it was her husband doing the telling.

"I will not go," she said passionately, knowing that even as she said it that she _would_ go. "If I am to die, I'd rather it be with you."

"It won't," he said tonelessly, no feeling at all in his face. "If I die, it will be on some fucking battlefield in the snow and the mud, and you will be left unprotected and alone." She shut her eyes at the vision that his words elicited. It had been her nightmare for some weeks. Truthfully, it had always been her nightmare, Sandor Clegane bloody and broken on some unknown plain, but since the war drums had begun to sound the plain had become a snowfield, and he lay in the whiteness slowly freezing, his blood nearly black and steaming in the ice around him.

It hit her like an arrow beneath her breastbone and she staggered, bracing one hand against the window and her fingertips against her lips.

He came to her on silent feet. He'd taken of his boots. It was incongruous to see him like that, discussing their deaths so calmly with his feet bare against the stone floor. She could not take her eyes off his long toes, not even when she felt him brush the backs of his knuckles against her cheek.

"I made vows, Lenna," he said quietly, and his voice was a broken whisper.

She hadn't realized she was crying until the tears coursed down her cheeks and down her nose, trembling at the tip even as she tried to pretend that she wasn't weeping. He wiped it away with a swipe of his fingers, then dug his hands into the hair behind her ears, lowering his head to hers.

"Yes," she said, her throat thick and the syllable muddy in her mouth. "You who never swore vows."

"But I've kept them." He had lifted his head a bit, and his eyes were burning into hers as he looked down at her through the curtain of his hair. There was a light in his gaze that humbled her and she nodded, leaning into him as her anger melted. All she was aware of was how warm he was, the solid expanse of his body before her, the way his breath stirred the hair that had escaped her braid and fluttered about her face.

"Yes, Sandor," she replied, laying her hands on his chest, feeling the thump of his heart beneath her palms. "You have. You always have."

His enormous hands engulfed hers and he drew her closer, one arm wrapped possessively about her waist. He pressed his lips hard to the crown of her head, then brought his face down to hers again, stooping until they were nose to nose.

"You'll go?" he asked, low voice shaking with apprehension.

She forced herself to look at him and saw the earnestness there, the desperate hope.

"It's folly," she gulped, trying one last time to change his mind. "If we lose in the north, going to Dorne will just prolong the waiting. We'll all die in the end."

"You'll go," he repeated, but this time it wasn't a question, but a command. The only other time she could recall him taking that tone with her had been the terrible night of the Blackwater when he had not heeded her protests against leaving and had thrown her over his shoulder and made off with her through the wilds like a pilfered sack of grain or the kidnapped princess in some foolish story.

The same hard anger was there, the anger that she knew was really agony.

"Yes," she whispered,"I'll go."

Later in Dorne, she often thought of what followed, the way he had crushed her to him. There hadn't been a need like that in his hands since the early days of their courtship, like the day he had pressed her against the willow tree by the tourney grounds, or the day of the riots, or the countless times on the road when they had been convinced they'd be caught and killed. She wasn't sure she liked it, the greedy way he touched her, hands hard even as the languor spread through her, the harsh tenderness threatening to overwhelm her. Even when he slept that night, he kept her clasped tight to him, his arm like iron around her waist, his hand splayed on her burgeoning belly. She wasn't sure if he slept, or if, like her, he lay sleepless in a futile attempt to put off the morning.

"Lenna?"

Her head snapped up at the sound of Myrcella's voice carrying down the path. The princess had Addy by the hand but was looking at Lenna in narrow-eyed concern. They were a vivid green, Myrcella's eyes, but unlike her mother's they were filled with kindness. As much as people swore that Myrcella resembled her mother, nearly a perfect copy, Lenna knew better. It was her father that Myrcella took after, her father and her uncle, but in her their crooked honor had been amended.

"Yes, Cella?" Lenna replied, clearing her throat. It was strange calling her that, but Myrcella had insisted. It seemed such a childish name for a woman almost grown and a princess to boot.

"You look quite wan," Cella replied. "Why don't you go rest? I'll keep Addy."

Lenna smiled quickly and nodded. It wasn't that she wanted to leave her daughter or her young friend, but she was tired, and sitting in the gardens gave her no occupation. She rose and kissed the child, the little girl so distracted by the bright butterflies that she practically twisted away from her mother's caress. Lenna put her hand over Cella's and took her leave.

She did not go to rest, though, not the way Cella meant. Her bed was her enemy, the place she fought nightly battles. Instead, she sought respite of a different sort. The only way she had found to ease her mind was to retreat, as she so often had as an unhappy young girl in King's Landing, into the stillness of the Keep's library. While not as extensive as the one in the Red Keep, or as familiar as her father's in White Harbor, Prince Doran's library was intriguing in its own. Rather than dark and cavernous, here the windows were open and sunlight streamed into the stacks. It wasn't even dusty, the breezes moving through the patterned screens in such a way that it never accumulated despite the sandy and arid environment.

It didn't smell like a library, though, something which vexed Lenna. There was no comforting smell of parchment, instead the air was fresh. She couldn't complain too terribly, though, because it was almost as deserted as the one in King's Landing. She had been able to command a table as was her custom, and in the brief periods of relief from war preparations, she was in the midst of reading first-hand accounts of Robert's Rebellion, gleaning whatever she could about the last conflict with the Targaryens in preparation for the next.

She rounded the corner while adjusting her sleeve, and she was alarmed to find someone else already seated at her table.

The young woman stood up quickly, her mouth opening and closing like a fish.

"Forgive me, my lady," she said quickly, bobbing a curtsy with her hands clasped before her. Lenna smiled indulgently.

"It's alright, Gilly," she said. "You only startled me a little."

"I didn't mean to pry," the girl replied, gesturing to the pile of parchments. "It's just-"

"What?" Lenna asked with genuine interest. She had been surprised to learn of the young woman when it was decided that Jon Snow's would-be maester would also sail to Dorne to help with preparations for fighting dragons rather than following his friend northward. That this young woman was with him, her little boy in tow, was even more or a surprise, but Lenna had grown quite fond of all of them.

"I don't know where to start," she said quickly. She wasn't a lovely person with her over-large front teeth and straight, dun-colored hair, but she radiated kindness and intelligence. Her large brown eyes were quick and discerning, but also full of good humor. From the beginning of the voyage, she had sat close at mealtimes and listened avidly to the discussions between Lenna and Prince Oberyn, though the girl was clearly cowed to be in his presence. Oberyn was kind himself, and he did not object to her being there, even talking to her on occasion. This only had the effect of making the girl tongue-tied and wide-eyed, putting Lenna in mind of a mouse or a rabbit. She knew that feeling all to well herself.

"I don't quite understand your meaning," Lenna replied patiently. The girl struggled to express herself clearly, and it endeared her to Lenna.

Gilly closed her eyes and took a sharp breath, trying to master her thoughts.

"The library," she said at last. "It's too big. I don't know where to start, so I-"

"Helped yourself to my books?" Lenna said with a genuine smile.

"I meant no offense-" she replied hurriedly.

"There has been none taken," Lenna assured her, pressing her hand. The girl's hands were rough, the hands of someone who had worked most of her life. Lenna did not know the girl's story, had not been able to coax it out of her, but she couldn't imagine how out of place she must feel in a place like Sunspear, surrounded by the opulence of Dorne and Samwell Tarly's new companions. "I can only apologize that it isn't more interesting."

"Oh," she exclaimed, "but it is!"

Lenna looked at her a bit skeptically. "These are the records from the maester at the Tower of Joy," Lenna said with a quiet laugh. "All I have found so far are receipts for supplies and the odd mention of the Rebellion."

"Is that what you are looking for?" Gilly asked. "Things about the Rebellion?"

Lenna nodded. "It keeps me occupied, thinking about the past."

Gilly bobbed her head in understanding. "Easier than thinking about the future."

Lenna smiled tightly, then looked around them. "Aye. And the Tower of Joy is of particular interest. It sits in the Red Mountains, you see, close by the border with the Stormlands and the Reach. That, and it is where they found Lyanna Stark, of course." Gilly's face had gone slack and pensive, a little dent appearing between her brows, her front teeth biting hard into her lower lip. Lenna smiled at her though Gilly did not see it. "Here. Two sets of eyes are better than one. Would you like to help me comb through all of this? I would appreciate the help as well as the company."

The young woman lit up, her eyes scrunching up at the corners. Again, Lenna could think of nothing but a friendly mouse when she looked into her face.

Lenna had never had a research assistant before, but Gilly took her new role seriously. There was nothing of import found on that first afternoon, except that Lenna felt she had gained another friend. Gilly was bright and ready to learn, and though she had to labor over the parchments, she was useful. She brought Sam with her on occasion, and Lenna brought Addy, the two children playing in the floor while their mother's worked. Before long, Cella was taking them both into the gardens to chase butterflies, much to Lenna's pleasure and Gilly's befuddlement.

"I didn't mean to presume," Lenna said one afternoon, waving as Cella took the children with her, hand in hand. "If you'd rather he stay-"

"No," Gilly said quickly. "It's just that I never thought my Sam would be playing with princesses and highborn girls."

Lenna looked down at her, the younger girl's face a picture of pleased consternation. _No_ , Lenna thought with a hint of sadness, _I never thought my lot would be princes and princesses, either._

The task was slow and tedious. The reading was easy enough as the Dornish spoke the Common Tongue. Lenna didn't even need to translate, but there were few records of the Rebellion it seemed, at least not in Prince Doran's library. She looked in all of the sections of the library where she thought information would be most plentiful, but it yielded little. Even though it had give nothing, she came back, time and again, to the box of papers from the Tower of Joy, more for distraction's sake than any real belief that there was anything at all useful to be found there.

Lenna had only pulled the dusty box off a distant shelf because of the association it had with the end of the Rebellion. After all, Lyanna Stark had been imprisoned in the Tower of Joy by Rhaegar Targaryen, had died there shortly after her brother had come to her rescue. There was quite a bit of mystery surrounding the whole affair, Ned Stark refusing to talk about his sister or the events surrounding her death. Lenna had grown up knowing not to mention it, especially on their trips to Winterfell, and her mother's face had gone so steely whenever it was whispered that Lenna eventually decided she didn't want to know what had happened at all.

They were sifting through supply lists and logs when a little brown leather volume tumbled out onto the table. Lenna picked it up in genuine curiosity. It was worn as if it had been handled often, and she opened it to find it filled with a precise, spidery hand.

"That's odd, isn't it?" Gilly asked, looking up from her own pile of parchments. "What is it?"

Lenna opened it, and a faded petal fell from the pages. It was dry and brittle as an insect's wing, the color of it all but black. A rose petal, if she were to wager _._ She inserted her finger where it had fallen and peered down at the precise, jagged writing, the ink faint and almost red against the old vellum, trying to find the exact page where the hidden rose had lain.

"It's a diary," she said in mild interest. "A maester's diary from the looks of it."

"Every Keep has a maester, I suppose," Gilly replied. "Sam certainly writes in his all the time."

Lenna smiled, her eyes scanning the pages carefully. At last, she turned and spied the dim outline where the petal had rested, the moisture from the flower leaching into the paper. "Look at this," she said, carefully passing the petal to Gilly. The girl took it carefully, cradling it in her palm. "I wonder why a maester would keep such."

Gilly made some reply, but Lenna didn't hear her. No sooner had she begun to read the entry that had been the petal's home than her heart began to speed.

 _Princess. Son. Eddard Stark._

"My lady?" Gilly asked, placing her fingers on Lenna's thin wrist. "Are you-"

"Sam," she said lowly. "Fetch him. Do it."

"My lady-"

"Now," she ordered, her heart thumping and her blood racing through her veins, leaving her lightheaded. Gilly jumped from her seat like a frighten rabbit and ran from the library. The petal had fallen from her hand and landed on the table, delicate as a butterfly's wing, and in the sunlight, the blackened rose took on a hue of deep blue.

Sandor LXIII

They limped back to Winterfell exhausted and decimated. The Wall had been breached, but the Night King, whatever he was, was dead. He wasn't sure that such a creature could be killed, was fairly certain he wasn't really alive. But whatever he was, he was defeated. Gone. Five months of marching and fighting, five months of freezing and starving, watching some of the men go mad from the cold or the gnawing hunger in their bellies. He'd loved it once, the campaign, but trudging along through the snow with his men, he couldn't remember why.

So many dead. Thoros of Myr had died one night after receiving a wound they all knew to be mortal. He froze to death, a gentle enough end in comparison to so many others. The great Wildling leader, ginger-haired Tormund, had died between one of the White Walkers and Brienne of Tarth. The woman was still mourning, though she'd held no tender feeling for him beyond friendship, perhaps even kinship. They were the three of them giants and outcasts, and even if he wouldn't exactly have called the man his friend, he admitted to a certain amity. His death hit them both hard, and She walked, like Sandor, with her head down and her eyes on her feet.

 _Eye_ , he reminded himself, adjusting the band of the eyepatch that criss-crossed his scarred face now. _As if you could have gotten uglier, you cunt_.

He'd lost it in the last great push, and it had hurt more than anything ever had before. He was lucky, though. A little deeper and he'd have been dead, his brain pierced by the wight's blade. The bugger had slipped up on him in the thick of the fighting, the knife landing just as Jon Snow struck down the Night King with his father's sword. Valyrian steel. As soon as the young bastard had pierced the creature's chest, the wights had fallen apart, heaps of bone and sinew rather than ferocious fighters. If he hadn't had a knife protruding from his face, Sandor might have watched, like the rest of them, in awe as that strange magic disappeared, retreating like blue flame. But, Sandor had been blinded by the pain, going to his knees as his face was covered in his own blood, waiting for the death blow that was bound to come.

It hadn't, the plain going strangely quiet as the men realized there was nothing left to fight. Dondarrion had come to him quickly, examining him roughly as Sandor bit down on his own tongue to keep from screaming.

"You'll live," Dondarrion had said, hoisting Sandor to his feet.

Victory felt like nothing. In the past, there had been this sense of triumph, of a fight well fought, but there was no celebration in the camp that night or even when they made it back to the walls of Winterfell. Their numbers were too reduced to take much joy in the winning. That, and Sandor knew it wasn't over. They'd been in Winterfell nigh a month. Daenerys Targaryen had flown back to Dragonstone on her monstrous mount, the remains of her army sailing down the White Knife to regroup. The Dothraki had suffered most, unable to bear the cold, the tactics that made them successful against mortal armies proving weakness in the snow-covered land of the North. Horses lost their footing and staggered into snowdrifts, their freezing riders thrown and trampled underfoot, their wild fighting useful against men made of meat, but not against soldiers who no longer relied on the working use of all of their limbs, their innards.

And Daenerys had been unable to set her dragons on her own men once the wights had infiltrated their lines. Sandor wouldn't have paused, not for a moment. It would have been easy to lance the melee with fire, to destroy the dead. But she'd hesitated, and it only took those few moments for that unholy mass to come writhing down amongst the riders as they forged the vanguard. With only dragonglass scythes as protection, they had been beaten down, their numbers so greatly reduced that it took less than half of the ships to carry them south as it had taken to bring them North in the first place.

The Unsullied had fared better, but they, too, were unused to such cold. Not that Sandor was, but he'd experienced his winters in his own time, though nothing could prepare them for fighting through the snow and the frozen mud. He'd dreamed he was dying more than he wanted, his final breaths disappearing into a pale stream as his blood froze around him, fusing him to the ground in a black puddle. But the cold was a mixed blessing once he lost the eye. No infection sprang from it, though it was horrifically painful when it was properly dressed back in their basecamp, the healer thawing life back into the half-frozen skin of the scar and with it an angry redness he was glad he couldn't see. If Brienne of Tarth winced when she saw him, he knew it must be gruesome.

He was almost glad it seemed they would be at Winterfell for some time, maybe give himself some time to physically heal. Not that Lenna had ever cared much about the scars, but he did. And to think that he looked even worse than he had before left him feeling much as he had as a young man, too aware of his face and how hard it was for people to look at him.

Then there were the complications, if that was the right word for it. As much as he felt the tendrils of shame when it came to thinking about seeing Lenna again, he also wished she was there, and not even for purely selfish reasons. It was as if the very air trembled, some strange tension stretching between Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen before she pulled her troops southward. For rest, she had said. Sandor suspected it was for some other reason, one he was too weary to contemplate. The little queen had been icy since the battle that destroyed the Night King, and he rather thought she was jealous.

Jealous that it was Jon Snow's oddly luminous sword that had killed him and not her precious Drogon.

That, or it was a lovers' quarrel. Nothing about Jon Snow's demeanor, however, said that it was. He treated the Targaryen girl with the same doleful seriousness he did everyone. If anything, he seemed to avoid her, favoring the company of his commanders. This seemed to displease her, and Sandor couldn't help but think it was because she was used to the men around her drooling. Her Old Bear certainly trailed after her like a dog, Jorah Mormont looking dejected and beaten even as he jumped to her commands with the energy of a man half his age.

Sandor wasn't unhappy to see her go. It had been seven months since they'd left King's Landing, and he was tired of the girl's naive suppositions and endless demands. He'd not been deaf to the grumblings of her own forces, the cold demoralizing to men raised in warmer climes. The Dothraki might have been a ferocious horde, but they were not used to the cold, and not used to fur trappings and the restrictions that came with fighting thus encumbered. And, like him, they just wanted to go home.

 _Home_ , he thought darkly. _Wherever she is_.

The babe would be born by now, he or she already a month or two old. He lived in daily anticipation, watching the ravens as they flew in and out of the Keep. They'd been a few weeks in Winterfell, though he'd lost count of how many. Maybe three. He could not determine why he'd heard nothing, though at night in his bunk his imagination ran rampant, concocting the worst scenarios. When he didn't dream of himself dying, he dreamt of her dying, of the babe born dead. He slept little, to be honest, to avoid facing any it, but he forced himself to go to meals in the Great Hall, sitting among the commanders in unease but grateful for the company of the Tarth woman, of fucking Jaime Lannister. He would look to Sansa Stark where she sat on the dais with her brother with hope in his eye and she would shake her head, just a little, and he would grit his teeth against the cold void that was gradually filling his ribcage.

Now, he took a deep swallow from his tankard and glanced around the Hall. Sansa Stark shot him a little smile from her place at the head table and his gut flooded with warmth. She nearly beamed at him. She leaned over and beckoned to a serving boy, whispering in the lad's ear. The child looked at Sandor with naked fear in his face, but he pressed his lips together and nodded, approaching Sandor with forced courage.

"My lady asks to see you in her study after the meal," he said.

"Tell your lady that I'll come," he rumbled, tucking into the last spoonfuls of stew in his bowl with renewed vigor. The boy fled from him gratefully.

Sansa Stark was waiting for him when he arrived, as were Jaime Lannister and Brienne Tarth and Jon Snow. It was already growing dark out, and Sansa was standing at her window. Bran Stark was sitting in his wheeled chair before the hearth.

"Clegane's here," Snow said. "So, what is so important that it couldn't wait until the council meeting tomorrow?"

Bran Stark didn't look away from the flames. Sandor wondered what he saw there. Sometimes he thought he saw shapes, figures, himself, but he'd shake his head and they'd be gone. _Going mad, old dog_. "There's one more."

"Who?" Snow asked, looking around.

"Me."

Every eye in the room turned to the portly young man standing in the doorway. Sandor thought he looked a bit trimmer than he had before, perhaps the toll of the long voyage from Dorne.

 _Dorne._

"It is to do with this." Sam said, his owl-like face the picture of nervousness. He was weakly holding out the book in his hands. Sansa took a step forward and Sandor pushed himself away from the wall, a strange trembling in his hands.

"What is it?" Jon Snow asked, brow furrowed. It looked fairly ordinary. Sandor had seen three or four dozen such books pass through Lenna's hands over the years. Plain, brown leather that was flaking at the binding, yellowing pages that had played host to some hungry bookworm judging by the maze of tunnels visible along the exposed edges. Just another old book, but whatever it was making the rotund maester sweat, his fingers leaving damp imprints on the cover.

"It changes everything," Sam replied. "Or, it has the potential to, I think."

"Spit it out, Sam," Jon said, the room growing tense and still as everyone turned their focus on the sweating, trembling young maester. Sandor looked at Sansa again. All of the radiance had been sapped from her young face. She looked like the Crone, her cheek drawn and her eyes dim, fingers like white claws against the black of her fur-lined sleeves. _She's tired_ , he thought, unable to repress the memories of Lenna looking just like that, like she was being drained from the inside, the golden light that had suffused her fading like a star in twilight.

"As you know," Sam began, his voice a trembling thread, "I went to Dorne with Lady Helenna." Sandor's head snapped up again and he looked hard at the young man. He swallowed harshly and Sam smiled tepidly in his direction. "To prepare. She spent some time in the library there, and she found this." He laid the book down on the table. "Sent me to bring it to you. It is a diary kept by the Maester at the Tower of Joy. There is an entry in it that is...most interesting."

"Why not send a raven?" Sansa asked.

"Too important," he replied. "Not safe."

Sam opened the book and opened it to a marked page. He slid the book across the tabletop to Jon Snow. The other man looked down at it dubiously, then bent his head to read it.

" _This day a son was delivered to the princess, but she labored painfully and long. The loss of blood was too great for her to bear-"_

"The princess?" Jaime said, his golden forehead creased and his green eyes dark. "Where was this? And when?"

"281," Sam replied. "The Tower of Joy."

"Princess Elia was not at the Tower of Joy in 281, and Princess Arianne would have been, what, five years old? There was not another princess-"

"Yes," Sam said at last. "There was." And with that he produced another book and slid it across the table. Sandor nearly rolled his eyes, wishing the boy would get on with the dramatic production and just tell them what he needed to say. _Tell him about Lenna. About Addy_. "Finish that first, though."

Jon Snow cut his eyes at Sam in frustration, but continued to read.

"- _the loss of blood was too great for her to bear, and she succumbed shortly after the arrival of her brother, Lord Eddard Stark, who had ridden to bring her home."_

Sansa jerked away from the window and for a moment, Sandor thought she was Catelyn Stark, her blue eyes wide and her face full of shock.

"Aunt Lyanna?" she whispered, her very lips white. "Aunt Lyanna did die at the Tower of Joy, but why would this maester call her a princess?"

Sam pushed the second book across the table. "Because she was one. Here," he said pointing to the second book, "the High Septon in King's Landing annulled the marriage between Elia Martell and Rhaegar Targaryen earlier that year, just at the beginning of the Rebellion. I found this quite a while ago- well, Gilly did- but we didn't realize what it actually meant. Not until Gilly and Lady Helenna pieced it together. The High Septon annulled it and then married Lyanna Stark and Prince Rhaegar in secret. Lady Lyanna was not kidnapped, she wasn't raped as we have always believed. She eloped with Prince Rhaegar of her own will, and Lady Helenna discovered that not only did she go to Dorne with him willingly, but that she also bore his child. A son. And that's what changes things. Changes everything."

" _She named him Aegon, and her brother has taken him into his own keeping to raise as his own_ ," Jon continued, his lips barely moving. He looked up suddenly, a terrible agony in his face. "Sam, you're not possibly suggesting-"

"It's you," Bran said from his place by the fire. He wasn't looking at them, and to Sandor he was but a black shape before the fire, his hooked nose like a crow's against the flame. "I've seen it. I've seen it all."

Jon stood abruptly, his chair tipping over with a clatter. He had gone pale, and the expression on his face made Sandor wish he wasn't there. He didn't want to be there. The man was shaking, his hands balled up into fists at his side.

"My father was Lord Eddard Stark," he said stonily, his voice shaking from the effort. "Eddard Stark was my father."

"He raised you," Bran replied, "but Rhaegar Targaryen's blood runs in your veins. And all this time you've wondered where your mother was, and she was right here. Right here in Winterfell. In the catacombs."

For a moment, Sandor thought Jon Snow might flip the table, but instead he closed the book on the tabletop and strode from the room, the door slamming against the wall behind him with a clatter.

Sansa stood up and followed him from the room, her cheeks wet. Sam looked around wildly between the door and, inexplicably, Sandor.

"I should go to him," Sam said, but he took a hesitant step towards where Sandor stood with his back to the wall, one foot braced against it. He regarded the boy with his lone eye down the length of his nose. The young man gulped, but dug into his robes and produced another scroll. "A message. From your wife."

Sandor went still, looking down at the proffered parchment. It was tied with crimson ribbon and bore a wax seal imprinted with three running dogs. The first word he'd had from her in months. It felt warm in his hand, like her fingers, and he slid his thumb beneath the seal without a thought for the others in the room. As he did so, Samwell Tarly slipped out through the door.

He grunted to see her writing again, the precise slant of her letters, the little blots that he knew were tears. Strange that the thought of her crying over that bit of parchment made him smile, but nothing could have prepared him for the feeling that erupted in him when he read her words.

 _Dearest Sandor,_

 _Wendel Manderly Clegane joined us a little sooner than he was supposed to, but he's a fine, jolly fellow and doing as well as can be. He has your hair and my eyes, and I rather think he's going to have your stubborn proclivities based on his tempestuous entrance into the world and his lusty, oft-used voice. Addy dotes on him, and he has her twined around his little fingers._

 _We are well, as I pray you are. I hope you do not mind the name. I felt the need to make some memorial to my brother who helped us so much, and did not think you'd object. You can name the next._

He felt his face go hot at that, keenly aware that he was not alone in the room. He wanted to weep, felt the tears welling up in his eye, pressure building beneath the patch over the destroyed socket. He sniffed harshly, all too aware that the others remaining in the room were studiously ignoring him

 _We miss you terribly, relieved at the lack of news. Keep yourself safe. All my love._

 _Lenna_

Short but it fairly thrummed with feeling. _A son_. He read it quickly again, appalled with himself to feel the wetness on his cheeks and dripping from his nose. He swiped the moisture away with his fingers.

"Clegane?" Brienne of Tarth was looking at him in concern, her homely face knit together, deep creases framing her wide mouth. "Clegane, what is it?"

"A son," he said roughly, clearing his throat. "Wendel Clegane. Born early, but well. They are both well."

"Manderly Clegane," Bran said evenly, still looking into the fire. Sandor glanced at him sharply, wondering how he could possibly know that. He had forgotten the boy was there, he was so quiet. There was something strange about Bran Stark, something that set him on guard, but he couldn't imagine why he should be so wary of a cripple.

"It sounds well," Bran said, turning his odd dark eyes on Sandor.

Sandor nodded, strangely grateful.

"And right now," Jaime Lannister said, getting to his feet and slapping Sandor on the shoulder with his good hand, "we need to celebrate. We have precious little cause for cheer, but this is wonderful news."

"I should write a reply," Sandor said gruffly. "Let her know-"

"Send it to King's Landing," Bran said. "She's not in Dorne anymore."

Sandor froze, pushing himself off the wall and taking a step toward the Stark boy.

"What do you mean?"

"I can see her," Bran replied. "She's on a ship, she and Prince Oberyn and Prince Tristayne. They are going to King's Landing."

"Why?" he demanded.

Bran cocked his head, birdlike, eyes back on the flames again.

"We are betrayed."

A/N: And still not sure where we are going with this, but onwards! I am not adept at writing battles, so I hope the recap is enough. I'm also not particularly interested in them, but they have to be covered, don't they? Nothing particularly new here, but it has to be covered. Separation won't last long. Couldn't bear it myself.

Hope everyone is well. Thanks for still reading. I'll try to get the next out in a timely fashion. Almost there, just have to tie up my loose ends.


	64. Chapter 64

Lenna LXIV

She didn't know what Tyrion wanted from her, or why she was summoned back to King's Landing. That had never been a part of their discussions previously, and it meant that she felt nervous and off-kilter from the moment she broke open the scroll and read its contents, her heart making its all-too-familiar plunge at the sight of the waxen lion. However, she couldn't wholly disagree with his logic as he presented it. It made sense to bring them all back together to talk before the next step was determined, but she could not tamp down the wary, leery feeling she got when she thought of once again walking into the Red Keep.

She prayed fervently that Samwell Tarly would make good time on his journey North. He'd left just after Wendel had come, a full month earlier than she'd expected the babe to arrive, not that the young maester had been particularly helpful in that instance. It was Gilly who realized what was happening and how quickly her labor was progressing, sending Sam to fetch the midwife like a bumbling bear pursued by bees. The babe had already proven himself stubborn before her pains even began, the sickness that had faded with time while she was carrying Addy perniciously continuing until the very morning he decided to make his appearance. She was so used to her stomach being sore from retching that she almost didn't realize what the sharp pains in her abdomen were, and she certainly didn't make it back to her rooms before he came. He entered into the world on the floor of Sunspear's library, the Wildling girl's rough, gentle hands catching the child and cutting his cord with a pair of scissors Lenna kept at her table in the library to trim parchment before Gilly wrapped him in a length she tore from her own skirt.

"Look," she'd said gently, almost with a child's wonder, when the midwife had swaddled the tiny infant and passed him to Gilly to place in Lenna's arms. "A boy, my lady. You have a son."

The babe had looked up at her with bleary eyes, his little mouth working. She had been expecting gray like Addy's, _like Sandor's_ , but her own eyes, her brother's eyes, looked back at her.

"Wendel," she'd said without thought, too exhausted and overwhelmed to even realize what she would say before it was said. He'd scrunched his face up as if he would cry, then yawned and fell asleep. And so, Wendel Manderly Clegane was named.

Lenna laughed when she realized it, and then she'd cried, burying her head against Gilly's shoulder and wishing so very hard that Sandor was there.

Wendel Manderly Clegane was born with a set of lusty lungs, and Lenna was quite sure he'd take after his father's grumbling given time. He wasn't exactly fussy, that wasn't the right word for it, but from his first breath, Wendel Clegane knew himself. He liked being held by his mother, but not for too long; he liked looking at his sister, but did not want to be cradled by her arms; he liked it when his mother sang, and he was always, always hungry.

But he grew rapidly, allaying the maester's fears that his early arrival boded ill. At almost a month, he was already the size Addy had been at the same time, despite his early arrival. If he was growing at such a tremendous rate, she wondered at the lad he would become, thinking sardonically at her concerns about the length of Addy's little legs. Her brother looked poised to surpass her apace even if he was younger and born early.

 _Definitely takes after his Da_ , she thought wryly, looking down at the basket by her feet. She was enjoying the roll and pitch of the ship as it cut toward King's Landing. Even this far south, she could feel the crisp taste of winter in the wind, and though she shouldn't have, she enjoyed it. The air tasted like snow, clean and cold, and despite the wariness with which she was sailing back to the capital, there was something of anticipation beginning to bloom in her. The gears were turning, the winches pulling tight, and she dared not think too much on it, but soon-

They had received the ravens from King's Landing informing them that the threat beyond the Wall was defeated. She had listened with deathly calm as Prince Oberyn read off the list of the high-born dead, her heart still in her chest until he passed where Sandor's should have been listed. It had stirred then, trembling like a fledgling born in winter, wings growing strong as her host's strong voice skimmed over places where her friends should have been. Sandor, it seemed, had survived, along with Jaime Lannister, Brienne Tarth, and Jon Snow himself.

Many, many others had not.

She was happy that Jon Snow lived, though some dark part of her thought things would have been much less complicated if he hadn't. She had chastised herself very soundly for even allowing the thought to flit across her mind, a traitorous thought, the thought of a conniver. It had kept her awake for several nights, the guilt, just as she'd lain awake after she and Gilly found that strange journal. She had wrestled with what to do with the discovery in that little book. Tommen Baratheon was her king, she had made that decision long ago and she was not the kind of woman to change her allegiances. It did not matter to her that he was not a Baratheon. He was a good young man, and he was acting in the best interest of his realm. She could want for nothing more than that. If anything, her years of reading and study had impressed on her the idiocy of dynasties. It was far too easy to accept the tyranny of a madman simply because he was his father's son, but Tommen Baratheon was all that had been good about his father. Both of them.

She wondered what she would have done if he wasn't, and the thought brought no comfort.

In the end, she and Samwell Tarly had made the decision that Jon Snow had a right to know that he was not a bastard, not by any stretch of the imagination. She tried to imagine the lad's reaction but fell into tears in the effort. Lenna had known Jon Snow the entirety of his life, and while Ned Stark had treated him as much like a son as he could, his status as a bastard was a painful one as the lad became a man, the differences in his lot and that of young Robb becoming agonizingly apparent. She had witnessed how Robb's death had grieved him after the siege of Winterfell, and Lenna was sorry, so sorry, that it was only now that he would learn that his ill-treatment had been for nothing. That he'd been lied to by the man he held as his father. That the woman who could have loved him as a nephew had instead reviled him as the bastard child of some unknown rival. That he had been prevented from taking his proper place in the world, acknowledged and loved.

Such heartbreak she could not bear to witness.

Lenna had seen the young maester and his books off at the quay herself, little Wendel swaddled in her arms. She had sent a message with him, though she had struggled long had with its composition. In the end, she had written little, trusting Sandor, should it be put into his hands, to know her from the few phrases she managed to cobble together. It was tucked now into the Dornish maester's diary, and it was strange for her to think of it pressed between those pages, her own message so mundane in contrast to the old scrawl that possessed a unknowable and terrible power. She felt it as the young maester took a few halting steps before he had turned to look back at them, a thrumming radiating from him that felt like fate. Sam had looked nervous until he saw Gilly, then his gaze had steadied and he'd lifted an arm, resolutely treading up the gangplank and out of sight.

Lenna did not know what she would have done without Gilly. Wendel had come too soon by a month, refusing to latch to her breast as Addy had. She had despaired in those first few days, the midwife looking grim and shaking her head. He wasn't putting on any weight, and he was too small to begin with. Lenna was exhausted, her breasts sore as she tried desperately to feed him well into the night. It had been Gilly that had taken one look at Wendel and known exactly what to do.

"His tongue," Gilly said, dark eyes narrowed as she looked at the babe. "I've seen that before. Shaped like a heart, it is."

Lenna and Sam had both looked, both saw what Gilly had. The girl was right. His tongue had a divot at the tip.

"He can't nurse like that," Gilly said, "at least, not easy. That's why he always seems hungry. He can't get enough before he tires."

"What do I do?" Lenna asked, her throat working. She was so tired and hopeless. It was unbearable to watch her boy becoming frail when he should be strengthening. She could not entertain the thought of telling Sandor that-

"You snip it," Gilly said quietly. "The little bit there. Just a little, just enough to free his tongue. He'll latch after."

Sam had looked at her with wonder in his bovine eyes, his face owlish and his small mouth pursed in a perfect o.

"Will you do it?" Lenna had asked. The girl gulped and nodded, holding a pair of embroidery scissors to a flame and then clipping Wendel so quickly and precisely he didn't even bleed. His little face scrunched up and for a moment Lenna thought he would set to wailing, but instead he yawned and went straight back to sleep.

The next time he awoke in hunger, he took to her breast without hesitation and Lenna wept with relief, her lips pressed against his head and the wispy tuft of his hair.

Now, she and Gilly were with the children as they charted course back to King's Landing. The news from beyond the wall made their errand that much more urgent. King TOmmen had called Lenna back to sit on his council again, to prepare for whatever negotiations were to be had with Daenerys Targaryen and her men in the wake of the Night King's defeat.

Every time she thought of it, her breath came shallow. She had spent so long preparing for one eventuality that she had hardly been able to ponder the next. Now that it was time to face the possibility of another war of succession, she found herself at a loss.

Lenna Clegane had no idea what to do.

It had been easy before, the right path laid out clearly. There was a right and there was a wrong, but now the two were all twisted up and gnarled together. Jon Snow was the rightful heir to the Targaryen throne, of that she had no doubt, but there was no more Targaryen throne. Daenerys Targaryen had no business sitting the Iron Throne, but the revelation of Jon's heritage threatened to inflame an already tense negotiation. After all, the promise of cooperation and alliance had only stretched as far as the end of the war beyond the Wall. Though it was a relief to know that there was no longer a threat from the Northern border, she now feared the threats within.

She did the only thing she could think of when Tyrion had written, entreating her to meet him in King's Landing to continue the negotiations with the Targaryen girl, Prince Oberyn and Prince Trystane accompanying her in secret to look after the amassed armies and weapons that had been quietly funneled into the Crownlands while the bulk of the armies were occupied in the North.

"We are well prepared," Oberyn assured her as they watched the Red Keep come into view. "We have our ships waiting in the Narrow Sea, our fighting men within a day's march, and the city itself is newly equipped with scorpions of your maester's design."

"I know," she replied distractedly, squinting her eyes against the salt-wind. "But something isn't right. This summoning-"

"I feel it, too," Gilly said quietly, her dark eyes large and her chin cast down. She'd grown rather bold in Oberyn's presence. It was certainly due to one of the many things Lenna found to admire in him; he never looked at Gilly as if she hadn't the right to speak. Instead, he listened to her just as he had listened to his brother, to Sam, and to Lenna herself. He was earthier than many of his counterparts, certainly among the Dornishmen. Though prone to lavishness and excess, Oberyn was shrewd and surprisingly approachable. Lenna thought it much had something to do with the amount of time he spent doting on his clutch of bastard children, their mothers ranging from noblewomen to whores to septas.

"Set your minds at ease," Oberyn said with a charming smirk. "Lenna knows better than most that they can smell fear. They mustn't smell yours."

His words did little to sooth the sizzle in her gut as she docked and rode from the quay to the Keep on a stout hired pony. Oberyn and Trystane slipped away into the crowds about their business and Gilly remained aboard the ship with the children. Lenna had been hesitant to send word ahead to her aunt of her arrival, thinking to arrange for Gilly and the children to stay in her household once she had made her appearance in the Red Keep. Olenna would be at the council meeting, she was sure. Her aunt had not returned to the Arbor since her granddaughter's coronation, much to Lenna's admitted relief. She felt easier knowing that Olenna had her fingers in the business of the realm.

Lenna went on alone, cloaked in her dark wool like some Northern bird bearing winter on her wings and roosting among the brightly colored parrots. The people of the capital bustled about in their bright colors and silk shawls, not paying her one bit of mind. It was just as well. Lenna shuddered involuntarily, gripping her cloak a little bit tighter. There was only the barest hint of chill in the air, so it was not the cold that made her shiver, just her memories. Lenna could not help but think of all the times she had made that same journey through the Fishmonger's Square and through the tight streets and alleys on the approach to the Red Keep.

Each of her recollections was colored by fear. The first was a pale, icy blue of a spring-sky, an innocent feeling that was more nervousness than fear. She'd been shaking and queasy and unprepared for her sudden entry into court, that little maid of fifteen with her red-leather book clutched in her hands like a touchstone. The second entrance she remembered through the lense of a deep, chaotic blue, that of the roiling ocean as she had returned from White Harbor with Sandor at her side, her eyes opened to her captors but her spirit still anchored in hope. This new fear, this new wariness, however, was sharp and almost green, the color of the shallows where the unseen sharks circled, black and shapeless as if borne on dark wings. She did not like the feeling of paranoia that had her glancing over her shoulder, her eyes scanning for she knew not what in the slender glimpses of sky visible between the closely packed buildings.

She gave her name at the gate and was ushered into the courtyard. It was quiet, almost abandoned, and she wondered vaguely why. A set of guards fell into step behind her as she made her way through the Keep and into the Holdfast, her feet remembering the way serviceably considering her mind was so preoccupied. It felt like not time at all before she was ushered into the small council room.

There was something delightfully routine about knowing the meetings were still happened at the same time without fail in her absence. She was almost cheerful when the door opened and she found herself confronted with so many familiar faces.

Familiar faces, yes, but all of them bewildered by her arrival.

"Lenna?" Tyrion asked, getting to his feet. He was sitting at the opposite end of the table, and when Lenna walked into the room he and his sister had been staring daggers at each other. It was best to keep them as far apart as possible. "Lenna, how did you come to be here, you should be-"

"My lord?" she replied with an ungraceful bubble of perplexed laughter, her breath turning to icy vapor in her lungs and beginning to hurt. Her head throbbed. "You yourself sent for me."

Tyrion cocked his head slowly, his mouth slack, and Lenna felt as if a shadow passed. She blinked, then realized that she was not imagining things, that the perception of darkness was not some perverse figment of her anxious imagination but an actual shadow. A rolling shadow, a waving shadow. A shadow like a beating of wings.

Tyrion swallowed, his mismatched eyes widening.

"I did not send for you, Lenna," he whispered.

She darted her eyes around the faces of those present at the table, and found them all looking back at her with the same expression of fearful anticipation.

All except one pair, set in a grinning face. Arched brows rose as the papers on the long table began to stir with the sudden, irregular wind that came streaming in from the open casements, and an ominous sound like rushing water or gushing heart's-blood seemed to flow through her very bones.

Lenna felt herself go cold, and then there was a great scraping sound, like a long rending of bone, or of metal against stone. The strange palpitations in the air ceased and a stillness settled in the chamber, thick and hot like the inside of an oven. The gulls had stopped their endless crying.

"Tyrion," she said lowly, taking a step back and looking only at her old friend. "Tyrion, what have you done? Why-"

"I did not call you, Lenna," he returned earnestly, his eyes wide and dilated. The silver hand on his shoulder was made crooked as it pulled on the fabric of his cloak. He swallowed hard, his gaze shifting to the only person in the chamber who seemed pleased to see her. Her own eyes darted again to the wiry man at the end of the table. Petyr Baelish was smiling openly now, a finger tracing the tip of his sharp, goateed chin.

"No," she replied sluggishly, forcing herself to look at Baelish and feeling keenly that everything she had ever thought, had ever heard about the odious man was true. The eyebrows darted upwards teasingly and she wanted to retch. "Of course you didn't. But I still wish to know why."

Baelish sat forward in his chair, his thin-lipped mouth poised to speak, but the door the room opened again and struck the stone wall with a clatter.

"That has a simple enough explanation, Lady Clegane. I commanded it." The cold voice that sounded from the doorway was uncomfortably familiar. Lenna had become used to that musical tone like a low flute. A shiver skittered along her spine.

Lenna turned slowly as the rest of the assembled party rose to their feet, even Cersei Lannister shocked into standing. Daenerys Targaryen was at the doorway, small and clad in black from shoulder to toes, long white hair gleaming like silver against the fur collar of her cloak and her hands clasped before her in an attitude that seemed to lend her stature.

"Under pretense, your grace?" Lenna asked with genuine suffering, remembering their last meeting. "I would have come had you bid it yourself."

"Would you?" Daenerys asked with an infuriating trace of a smirk around her mouth. "Forgive me, then, for resorting to such tactics."

Lenna shut her eyes in trepidation.

"Your grace-" Tyrion began, taking a step forward, his expression troubled and panic widening his nostrils.

"I will not take up too much of your time," Daenerys returned shortly, ignoring him. "I can see that you are very busy plotting my death. Or so Lord Baelish tells me." Lenna glanced at Cersei and then at Tyrion. Cersei's face was tight, her skull plainly visible beneath the taut skin of her cheeks and forehead as she clenched her jaw. Tyrion had gone ashen, mouth agape in protest. He was at a loss for words, and Lenna could not help but feel that was an ill omen.

 _You never did believe,_ she thought, _that he would be able to turn on them, did you? For all that has happened, all that has come to pass, he is still a Lannister in the end_.

Another voice whispered obstinately. _Just as you are_.

She was saved from this line of thinking, however, by the Dragon Queen's approach. For all that she was a small person, Daenerys radiated power. It wasn't charisma, it wasn't charm, it was unbridled and terrifying power. Cersei had been like that once, all golden and glowing and terrible, but where Cersei had been as a sun, this Targaryen was a dark star. She was still clad as she had been in the North, the black fur and leather out of place in honeyed-stone room, Cersei's gown a vibrant red, Tommen and Margaery's robes a vivid blue. Only Lenna and Tyrion were drab in their dark clothes, but Lenna had gone deathly white.

"The war beyond the Wall is over," Daenerys said perfunctorily with an air of great authority, "as I am sure you know. And so, our pact is fulfilled." She paused as if expecting some kind of protest. No one moved, though many dropped their eyes. Lenna was not among them, and she did not miss the disappointed smirk that graced the girl's full mouth. _Woman. Queen_ , she thought wildly, noting perhaps for the first time that even though she was barely more than a girl, Daenerys Targaryen was now fully in command of her own decisions. If Tyrion was not aware of her arrival, and only Petyr Baelish-

 _Good gods_ , Lenna thought dully. _How long?_

Daenerys looked down at her hands with a cocked brow, an expression of forbearance and hardly concealed impatience about her pursed mouth. "I will give you three days to determine your course. I will keep it simple for you. Either surrender King's Landing to me at the appointed time, or…" she trailed off as an ominous scraping seemed to emanate from the very stones of the Keep. Her violet eyes lit up with incongruous affection. "There will be no further negotiations."

"Your grace-" Tyrion started, tight-lipped and dark eyed. He had stretched out a hand as if to placate her, to stop her, but she regarded him coldly.

"No," she replied imperiously. "I have listened too well to you, my lord." Then she turned her eye on Lenna. "You wish to know why you are here, Lady Helenna? I called you to do what you do best. You claim to have the good of your realm at heart, and as such, I can almost understand your treachery. This lot will try to find a way around my desires, but you know it is folly to resist. You know the strength of my armies, the power of my dragons. You know what happens when dragons attack a city. You know the histories. I am the daughter of Aerys Targaryen, am I not?"

"Yes, your grace," Lenna answered numbly.

"And he was deposed by treachery. Is this correct?"

"Yes, your grace," she said again, thinking of Jaime Lannister in his white armor with his white teeth and blackened name and thousands saved from the flame in recompense.

"And I am his sole surviving child. That makes me his heir. Is that not the way of it? Isn't your son your husband's heir, now?"

Lenna's heart fell into her gut and she wanted to demand how she knew of Wendel, but she heard a threat when it was uttered.

"Of course, your grace," she said instead. "That is the way of things. That is the law."

"Indeed," Daenerys repeated, "and so I stand here the rightful queen of Westeros in the company of usurpers and traitors. But I am just." Her eyebrow rose again, each sound vibrating through the room like a spearpoint striking its target. "I can be forgiving."

She looked at Lenna openly then, eyes like heather or asters bubbling like hot springs, cool enough, still enough on the surface, but boiling hot the deeper she looked.

Without another word, Daenerys Targaryen turned her back on the assembled company, Petyr Baelish making a hasty exit behind her without so much as a backwards glance.

The door closed with a finality that set Lenna's bones to buzzing.

Tommen sat down in his chair heavily, resting his forehead in his hand.

"What do we do?" he asked the room at large. Lenna scanned them individually, drawing no comfort from their stunned and slack faces. Even her aunt looked crestfallen, wrinkled face smooth and pale with horror.

"There is but one thing to do, your grace," Lenna ground out quietly. "Tell her you will surrender, that you will abdicate in her favor and retire to Casterly Rock."

"I will not abandon the crown or my people," Tommen said, and Lenna almost smiled at him. _The best of both his fathers_ , she thought again.

"No," she replied, her mouth suddenly dry. "You will not."

"You are suggesting that the king lie," Cersei replied, but there was little bite in her voice. Her golden brows were furrowed, and for the first time, Cersei looked _old_.

"Aye," Lenna said with a tilt of her head. "I am suggesting that."

"And what else?" Cersei asked with a cock of her eyebrow. Lenna felt tired, washed out and gray.

"Hope that our fortifications are indeed, enough. Provide for the welfare of the smallfolk. Evacuate immediately. And," she hesitated with a quick hitch of her breath. "Pray."

A/N: OMG sorry for the confusion last night- I uploaded the wrong version of the chapter, one that I'd been using as a sketch and not polished, hence the confusion. Sorry again for not uploading the correct one more quickly! Thank you for your continued patience. Hope to have the next bit up this week. So close to the end.


	65. Chapter 65

Lenna LXV

She felt a fool for not seeing it before. Petyr Baelish. Of course it was Petyr Baelish. He'd always sniffed around court, puffing himself up like some great lord when he was a little one, his slimy voice slithering into conversations where he didn't belong. No one stopped him, out of politeness or forbearance she didn't know. She only knew that their ignoring Littlefinger might have well proved fatal.

Footsteps faded from their hearing, but the terrible grating of dragon's claws against the stone of the Red Keep's parapet was nearly palpable. All of those gathered in the room swarmed to the open-work windows, not at all concerned with being seen. Lenna would wager that Daenerys Targaryen _wanted_ them peering down at her in that mixture of horror and awe. Little as she was, she looked to Lenna like something out of the legends, drawn in grim black and white, her massive mount no longer beautiful in her eyes but monstrous. It was, of course, the beast's massive wings that had caused the strange shadows, the eerie breaths of wind, and the grinding, scraping noise that was setting the Keep itself to trembling. She was half convinced it was a dream of a dark tale, and Lenna could not help herself, craning her neck up and out of the open window to watch as it spread leathery wings and went gliding toward Dragonstone, so close by that it also served as a reminder of how dire things really were.

"You must leave here," came a voice at her elbow. Her aunt was bracing herself on her knuckles against the tabletop, her wimple nearly vibrating with anxiety. Lenna had never seen her so. Olenna Tyrell had vacillated easily between sardonic mocking, anger, and good humor, but Lenna had never seen her afraid.

"I cannot," she replied levelly, her jaw so tight her teeth slid against each other. "You know that I cannot."

"Your children," Olenna breathed, "where are they?"

"They? How-" Lenna bit her tongue and took a step backward.

"You are not the only one with friends," Olenna barked, eyes blazing and spitting like a flame. "Doran has been my correspondent these many years. He would naturally inform me of the birth of my kin, even if my own niece didn't see fit to do so herself." There was hurt and there was poison in her voice and Lenna balked.

"I felt it too dangerous," she protested quietly, swallowing her discomfort. _You wanted him to know first_.

"Whatever your reasoning doesn't matter," Olenna continued, coming so close that Lenna could feel the old woman's hot breath on her cheeks. "Where are they?"

"On the ship," she replied stiffly, almost sullenly. "I had thought to prevail upon you for accommodation while we are in the city."

"Whose ship?" Olenna barked. "Your father's?"

"Oberyn's," she answered like a child. She wondered that Doran hadn't mentioned it.

"He's here?" her aunt prodded.

"Aye," Lenna replied, looking at her hands, her throat dry.

Olenna nodded like the affirmation had made a decision for her. "I am leaving. I suggest you come with me. This will not end well, and I will not -"

"I cannot leave," Lenna said quietly, "but I beg you to take my children with you."

Olenna looked into her face, rheumy eyes searching for something. "You have so much of my sister about you. I never understood her, that foolhardy loyalty of hers. She bore it for too many people, you see, and I was convinced that it would bring her misery."

"It didn't," Lenna replied quietly. "The only thing that made her unhappy was-"

"Me," Olenna supplied. "Yes. I know. Because I didn't understand. Seven hells, I still don't. And you bear it, too. Only instead of your dear ones, you've taken on the whole, haven't you? What good can come of it, I ask? But I am old, and I won't try to change your mind. I know better than to try. I do not know why you feel you must stay, but I will not ask you again to go." Lenna could not bear to look at her anymore and she blinked, fat drops falling from her lashes though there were not more to follow. Her aunt's hand tightened on hers. "There is a wet-nurse in my household. I will bring her with us. Your children will be safe with me in Highgarden." Lenna suppressed the sob and smiled tightly and reached out to take her aunt's hand. Her skin was dry and papery, but the tendons were still strong. "Oberyn will understand the requisitioning of his ship," she continued. "Best we not sail under the Tyrell rose. We are being watched, make no mistake." Lenna nodded, and then Olenna leaned forward and brushed her lips against Lenna's cheek. "You are more than I ever thought to be, though you wanted it so little. I'm not much for prayer, dear girl, but I will pray that we meet again."

When Olenna Tyrell left her, she felt almost as bereaved as she had the morning she took in hand the black-banded scroll that bore the news of her mother's death. _Empty_ , she thought, _just a vessel, an implement_. Sandor had always understood this, how they were not their own people, rather they were tools or puppets depending on the day. She struggled with the very idea of letting her children go from her. Wendel was at the breast, barely two months old, and she had never before been parted from Addy.

 _What kind of mother-_

And then she thought of her own. The morning of her fifteenth nameday, the arrival of Cersei Lannister's summons, and the look of gray resignation on her own mother's face. Lenna had never even thought to be angry with her for sending her away. It had never crossed her mind that her mother was choosing to let her go into the lion's den, and even on the darkest days in court, Lenna had never blamed her mother, never blamed her father. She had missed them, to be sure, felt their absence so keenly it was like there was a knife protruding from her back, but she'd understood that there had been no choice. The evenness in Adalyn Manderly's voice when she had informed Lenna of the invitation, her cool courtier's face a startling counterpoint to Wyman Manderly's red-faced spluttering, it had been something of a vision, a premonition, as Lenna felt that same stillness that she had read there in her mother's face so many years before.

 _Stand up straight, stack the spine, chin up, and eyes open_ , she thought to herself, and the prickle behind her eyes faded. She would not cry. Not yet.

She stood in the middle of the room, her hands folded against the fullness of her skirts, feeling very small. So many decisions made in such a little space of time, and she had no idea what the consequences would be. There wasn't time to think, simply to bear up, do her duty, and hope that when it was over, she would see her children again, see their father again, even if the possibility seemed so very bleak.

"Go to them." Margaery was still sitting in her chair, knuckles white against the dark wood of the arms. "You must at least say goodbye."

"There is too much to do-"

"The realm will wait," Margaery insisted. "The tide will not. Go."

So she did. The journey from the Red Keep to the harbor should have been remarkable. The was a trill of uneasy activity in the streets. The smallfolk knew, of course, that the Seven Kingdoms had been aided by the Daenerys and her dragons, but the appearance of such a beast unexpectedly on the Red Keep's walls would not have gone unnoticed or be found particularly comforting. Daenerys wanted the people to see her, wanted them to be afraid, and Lenna was convinced by the time she finally reached the quay that the little queen's objective had been met.

Gilly's face was stark white.

"There was a dragon," she said dumbly, swallowing hard as she bounced Wendel in her arms.

"Yes," Lenna replied without any further explanation, and Gilly's eyes welled.

"Are we to leave?"

"You are, but I will remain." She looped her arm through Gilly's and set the two of them on a slow course around the deck of the ship, careful to maintain the calm, soothing tone as she explained exactly what was happening and what the girl was to do despite the icy morass that had taken residence in her own gut.

"You will not leave this ship, and you will sail again before nightfall," Lenna said, taking Gilly's hand in hers. "My aunt will come to you directly. I will remain here in the capital. I need you to look after Addy and Wendel. Your journey will be quite lengthy, several weeks, but you will be safe. I will join you as soon as I am able, but it may not be for a long time."

"What is happening?"

Lenna bit the sides of her tongue to keep the panic down. "That is yet to be seen. But it is not safe here for you. You must go."

"If it isn't safe for us, then it isn't safe for you," Gilly said urgently.

"No," Lenna agreed, dropping the other woman's hands. "It isn't. But here I must remain."

"You cannot just send them away," Gilly said harshly, looking over to where Addy and Sam were playing on the deck. "You're a mother, Lenna, your first duty-"

"Is to them," Lenna supplied. "Aye, it is. And it is for them that I have to stay. For them, and for little Sam. And for you and my aunt. I have to stay to keep them safe, to try and keep their land safe. If I don't, they will wake up somewhere new and dangerous. They still might, but at least I will have tried."

Gilly shook her head, but she said no more and accepted Lenna's embrace when she reached for her.

Saying goodbye to the children was harder, so she didn't. She simply sat with Addy and Sam for a time and joined in their game, Wendel resting in her lap. They were building with blocks, a little village, and Lenna made herself smile and laugh until the sun slipped lower in the sky. Activity on the wharf increased and Lenna easily spotted her aunt's household scurrying about with trunks and crates, the lady herself overseeing it all in a fresh gown and a starched wimple more suited to a day at court than fleeing the capital under threat of dragonfire.

Lenna's heart set to beating faster. Making a fuss would not do Addy any good, so she drew the little girl to her and tipped her face up so that they were looking at each other. Sandor's eyes looked back at hers.

"You have to go now, dear girl," she said softly, stroking the dark curls and swallowing the thick, sharp lump in her throat. "You will be gone a long time, and I will stay here. But you will have Gilly to look after you. And I need you to look after Wendel for me. Can you be a good big sister?"

"Yes," the little girl replied solemnly. "Who that?"

Olenna Tyrell had boarded, and she waited silently behind Lenna on the decking looking imperious and stately, but there was a softness in her face that almost cracked Lenna's resolve to not cry in front of her children.

"Your Auntie Olenna," she replied, taking Addy's hand and leading her over to the old woman. "You're going to stay with her in her castle. Highgarden."

"You'll be the only little girl in the whole place," Olenna said in a conspiratorial tone, leaning down to look into Addy's open little face. Her ease with the child took Lenna aback. One gnarled finger tapped the tip of Addy's nose, making her giggle. "And we shall have such fun, you and I."

"And Wendel?" Addy asked eagerly, "and Sam?"

"And Wendel and Sam," Olenna replied, reaching out her wizened old hand. Addy took it without a pause, eyes utterly trusting. "Now, say farewell to your mother. We have to go now, before it gets dark. And when you wake up tomorrow, we shall be on an adventure."

Lenna had crouched down beside her daughter and the little girl turned to her.

"'N 'venture," Addy said with hushed excitement in her voice and a sheen of wonder in her eyes. Lenna pulled her close to keep her from seeing the tears in her own, blotting them on her sleeve furtively so that only Olenna saw. She rose quickly, squeezing Addy's hand, then took Wendel from Gilly, humming to him for a moment and burying her nose in the spot between his neck and shoulder where he smelled the sweetest, before pushing him back into the other woman's arms. Gilly, to her credit, kept her smile bright and her eyes clear, and when she beckoned to the children it was with ordinariness that did not betray the possibility that this was the last goodbye.

Lenna blessed her for it, watching with her hands clasped tight in front of her as the little figures dipped below and Gilly threw one more tremulous smile over her shoulder that created a terrible thump in Lenna's breast.

"You have my word that no harm shall come to them," Olenna said at her side. Her voice was quiet though not exactly comforting. Perfunctory. Lenna's lip twitched, wondering if she was more like her aunt than she had previously thought. The old woman's hand slipped into hers, warm and dry, the skin papery like worn parchment. "No matter the outcome, Lenna." It was the most guileless speech she'd ever heard from the Queen of Thorns, and it made Lenna look at her in surprise. "We never believe it will come to such as this," Olenna continued. "It is natural for fathers to take leave of their families, to fight in the wars and leave their children and wives behind in prayed-for safety. A story as old as our race, it seems. And here we have mothers taking leave of their children, but instead of satisfying a lust for blood, it is the attempt and halt such partings altogether. I hope, very fervently, that this will be the only time it will be necessary."

She squeezed Lenna's hand and went below, gesturing to her men and lobbing commands. When she disappeared down the stairs, she did not turn back to look at her neice, and Lenna was grateful. There was no stopping the tears that were streaming silently down her cheeks, and she did not even try to wipe them away, letting the wind do her work for her as she turned heel and proceeded down the gangplank and back through the thronging, apprehensive city.

She swiped under her eyes as she made her way back through the Red Keep, only marginally worried that the kohl under her eyes had smudged. She found she didn't much care if they knew she had been crying. She doubted she was alone in it. The small council chamber was aglow when she returned, and though almost every seat was occupied, the room was cast in sullen silence. Petyr Baelish's spot had been filled, it seemed, and Oberyn Martell looked up at her from that place with dark eyes brimming with anger, Trystane standing behind him braced against the wall.

"Lady Olenna has left for Highgarden," Lenna said quietly as she adjusted her sleeves, "on your ship." She did not look at him.

"And I am confused as to why you are not on it as well," Oberyn replied lowly. The strain in his voice made her want to weep anew.

"My place is here," Lenna replied tiredly, her voice nearly breaking as she made herself look at him. The hooded eyes were dubious but gentle as he regarded her, and she almost wavered. _Here. My place is here._ How many times had she said that since dawn? The more she thought it, the more she spoke it, the more she doubted it.

Oberyn pressed his lips together tightly and looked away, his fist balanced on the edge of the table at the wrist and his fingers curling in with self-restraint. For his excess, he was a master of discipline, something that had thoroughly fascinated Lenna during her time in Dorne. She'd known him from court, at least known he was and of his reputation, but the Oberyn Martell who had sat at Prince Doran's table in Sunspear, debating philosophy and providing remarkably sound and astute counsel was at odds with the excessive philander. They had formed a friendship, Lenna thought, and his anger at her and for her was flattering, but there was far too much to do to indulge it.

"What is our plan, then?" he demanded, spreading his hand flat out on the table. Tommen looked at him askance and Margaery simply stared at the table top, mouth slightly open. She was pale and drawn, the skin across her delicate cheekbones pulled taut, confirmation indeed that Lenna had not been the only one weeping that afternoon.

"There isn't much of one," Tommen said quietly, looking very much like a boy trying to fit into an oversized crown. "We will evacuate as many as we can in the next day. After sunset day after tomorrow, we will bar the gates and stay in place."

"My men," Oberyn said, leaning forward, "where do you want them?"

"Out of sight," Lenna replied when Tommen floundered. "We are being closely watched. We must do the best we can with the forces that we already have in place. The rest will come to us as quickly as they may, but not before the deadline. We cannot allow in reinforcements while we are being watched. We must get as many of the smallfolk out of the city as possible."

"Where will they go?" Margaery asked, her brow furrowed. "There is nowhere for them to go and it is winter."

"Ravens to the Reach in the morning. To Dorne. Nowhere more Northward. There are no resources there to support refugees. Men and boys over the age of fourteen will need to stay and help defend the city."

"So we put the women and the children on the road unprotected-" Margaery said coolly.

"We are at peace," Lenna said. "It isn't ideal, but what other options do we have?"

There were none.

In the end, the evacuation did not happen at all. Lenna woke before sunrise to the sound of beating wings. Making her way out into the colonnade that overlooked the city, it did not take her long to spy the reeling shapes of the three black dragons spiralling over the roofs of King's Landing, casting their great shadows darkly in the streets. Even from her tower window, she could hear the shouting in the sheets, could see the people pouring out from the houses in a combination of terror and curiosity.

It seized her, too, and she stood, eyes turned upward almost as if in prayer, with her shawl pulled tight around her as she watched them, more graceful than anything she had seen in her life, their enormous bodies coursing through the air like dolphins in the deep, the sun rolling off their scales like a school of fish in a wave.

"I always loved dragons as a boy." She stiffened at the sound of his voice. Tyrion came to stand beside her, his hands flat on the stone beside hers, stubby and blunt-tipped. He was wearing his Lannister ring again, she noted, the lion winking from the little finger of his left hand in the dawn. He was cloaked, but Lenna did not miss the absence of the Hand at his shoulder. "I loved what I should have feared, thinking I never would see one again, wishing that I could. Now that I have seen them, I wish they'd stayed extinct."

"They are beautiful," Lenna allowed, wondering what he wanted her to say. "But not beautiful enough to be worth the cost."

"No," he agreed, lightly pounding a fist against the stone. "I see that now. I have been so blind."

She wanted to scoff at him, to mock him and rail at him, but that tenderness for him, for _them_ , she'd never been able to kill.

"You have been human," Lenna replied kindly, though it hurt her to say it. "You wanted to believe in something."

"I thought I did," he rejoined with a puff of icy laughter. "But I was mistaken in what I thought she was." Lenna closed her eyes, unwilling for him to unburden himself to her but unable to walk away from him. "You should have seen her in Essos, the way she freed the people of Meereen, how she ended slavery, reunited families-" he struck his fist against the stone again, "but her _own_ people, her own people she would enslave."

"She is a Targaryen," Lenna replied, "she has been told her whole life that she is special. she has been wronged. Her own people betrayed her. How could she rule them justly while hating them?"

"She was told that they toasted to her, prayed for her return," he replied, but Lenna could hear his lack of conviction in his own voice.

"Pretty lies. Would you have believed it?" Lenna asked, looking down at him. "Do you believe flatterers, Tyrion? Surely you have encountered your fair share."

He smiled tightly. "You have grown more savage, Lenna."

"I have grown tired," she responded, and Tyrion sighed.

"She's intelligent," he said continued quietly, "but she's naive. She doesn't understand what she is doing. The scope of her goal is rather too limited, just as we spoke of months ago. I have tried-"

"And we do not know when she stopped listening to you," Lenna said tersely. It weighed on her. She had gone over her every interaction with the Targaryen girl like picking nits from her memories. She could find no evidence of guile, of deceit, and Lenna was quite sure that the girl was too unschooled to be adept at such a game to begin with. The examination left her with no answers, only questions. "When did Petyr Baelish ever enter into this situation? How long has he been feeding her information mixed with lies?"

"Lies?" Tyrion asked.

"Plotting her death," Lenna replied coldly. "Surely that isn't true."

"What other course could there be?" Tyrion said, looking up at her impassively. She could no longer stomach looking at him, turning and bracing her hands against the wall. "There will be no peace while she lives." Lenna pinched the bridge of her nose. "If she is defeated, she will simply go back to Essos and lick her wounds, rebuild her army. She will find people like Littlefinger who will help her while smiling in our courts. She will be charmed by soft-voice snakes who promise her what she wants most."

"The Iron Throne," Lenna said dully, "why does everyone want that frightful thing?"

"It is hard," he said quietly, "to not want more power once you have tasted some of it. Especially if you haven't had what you feel is your share."

Lenna glanced down at him, but there was a dark expression on his face as he stared out over the city, one that made her wonder if he was not talking more of himself than the Dragon Queen.

"It is a false seducer," he continued, "an incubus. It promises vengeance, wealth, love...everything."

"She will be a queen of bones," Lenna said quietly.

"Not if we have anything to say about it," Tyrion replied with a sardonic twist of the lip. "Prince Oberyn is more than capable. I wish I had known that about him earlier."

"You might have if any of you bothered to speak with the Martells."

"Bad blood," he said quietly. "Another one of our sins that has left a lasting legacy."

"Aye," she replied, thinking of poor Elia Martell and her children. She supposed it was only her own husband's loathing for his brother and the tale of his death that spared her their censure. After all, they had sheltered the niece and nephew of the man who had raped and killed their beloved sister without a word. "We are still reaping that harvest of blood."

There was little precedent for defense against an attack by dragons. Lenna doubted very much that any of the advice they gave the smallfolk would do them much good if the scorpions should fail to fell the dragons in good time. Retreating into cellars, into the crypts of the Sept and the deep recesses of the Keep did not seem adequate precautions. At least Tyrion had overseen the removal of the caches of wildfire from beneath the city streets, fearful that they would catch inadvertently. Instead, he had them positioned with the trebuchets to be flung at the ships that were slowly filtering into the Bay.

Tommen and Margaery oversaw the care of those in Sept of Baelor themselves in the day before the appointed time. Lenna was with them for a time, finding places for families, making sure bedrolls and porridge were being supplied to those who needed them. By midday, the entire Sept was full to capacity, right down the crypts beneath.

Lenna and Tyrion went together back to the Keep to begin diverting the flow of refugees into the Red Keep itself. She nearly flinched and went to the ground when the shadow passed overhead, lower than it had been before. And then came the roaring.

She didn't know if it was in her ears or the sound of fire, she only knew that she was running, faster than she perhaps ever had in her life. Tyrion kept pace behind her, pushing her into the Keep and behind the minimal safety the stone walls could provide. She was out of breath, her chest heaving, but she did not stop, careening through the courtyard and as high as she could to get a better view of what was happening.

It was like Blackwater all over again, but a hundred times more terrible. There was screaming, the people still in the streets streaming like rats before a storm surge, choked between the walls.

"It isn't time," Lenna yelled, and Tyrion looked back at her dazed. "It isn't time. She said three days."

"She changed her mind," he replied, lips barely moving. One of the dragons dipped low by the city wall, and through the din Lenna heard it cry out sharply as a scorpion bolt pierced its wing. Another snap indicated the release of a second bolt, this one embedding itself in the creature's side, below the wing. The dragon fumbled in midair, still crying out, but continued on its circuit.

"Where is the king?" Cersei Lannister was striding toward them, her hair billowing out in a corona around her head, the green eyes burning and fixed on the sky. Her lips were set as if in stone, her every feature carven and seemingly ancient. When no one immediately replied, she looked at Lenna and the expression there nearly made her gasp.

"He's with the queen," Tyrion answered. "They are ministering to the smallfolk in the Great Sept."

"No," Cersei said sharply, moving like a doe frightened by a hunter inadvertently stepping on a twig. She fumbled as she ran, her skirts choking her, tangling in her legs. "Why was I not told. He cannot be there."

Lenna had never seen Cersei desperate, not like this. She dashed forward to catch her, the slow her, and Cersei stumbled.

There was then a rumbling like an earthquake and the morning air itself seemed painted green. Lenna looked at the glow of it reflected on her skin, confused and befuddled, Cersei crumpling on the ground like one broken on the racks.

"Wildfire?" Lenna said, dazedly look at Tyrion. "We moved it all."

"Not all apparently," Tyrion said, and Lenna looked to where he was facing and almost fell to her knees.

"My son." They both turned away from the spectacle of the blaze, the overwhelming sound of burning and wailing and screaming. The sounds of a siege.

Cersei was sprawled against the stones, and Lenna found herself horrified to see her like that, always so regal and composed nothing but a sputtering wreck on the ground.

She was wailing, and Lenna struggled to understand what it was she was saying.

"Why did no one tell me?" she suddenly demanded, staggering to her feet and gripping Lenna hard by the arms. "Why did you not tell me he was in the Sept?"

"Your grace," Lenna began, "he was doing his duty, he was tending to his people-"

"Why the Sept? Why did no one tell me he would go to the Sept?" She felt cold, as if she had been suddenly submerged into a cistern of snowmelt. "My boy. My boy. My fault."

"Cersei," Tyrion said, walking toward her with an outstretched hand. "Cersei, what-"

"Wildfire," Cersei said absently. "I had it put there during the business with the High Sparrow." Her face had calmed and she was looking at the sight of the blazing green ruins of the Sept as if it was an oil painting in her gallery. "I had not thought-" She turned her eyes back on Lenna and they were utterly blank, like water in the shoals, seemingly shallow and bright but with death lurking beneath.

Lenna took a shuddering breath and realized belatedly that she was sobbing. She bit down on her fist and watched as Cersei drifted toward the stone railing, unmoored. The beating of the dragons' wings was running over them like wind, like the wall of a hurricane, and it stirred Cersei's gown and hair until it seemed she was no longer a woman, but a column of smoke and gold. Lenna had the strangest sensation of drowning, of the wind slowing to the gentle eddy of a current as Cersei walked, her hair churning like a mermaid's beneath the waves. Even with all of the wind, all of the roaring, Lenna felt unusually still.

She had always been told that drowning was either excessively painful or profoundly peaceful. There was, of course, the initial time when one would try and hold one's breath, try and kick for the surface. She still vividly recalled how much it burned to gulp the seawater as a child as her little body was brutally driven against the sand in the breakers. Rescued sailors said that when you couldn't hold your breath any more, your body made you inhale, and it burned like having molten metal poured down your throat. Then, however, one of two things happened. The ones that fought said it hurt like the seven hells, that they were completely aware that they were alive and about to die, and they forced themselves to flail, to kick, until the blue turned to black. The others, though, didn't fight. Acceptance, they said, made it peaceful, the world seeming to slow down, even underwater, as they passed incrementally from life into death. There was no sound, just the water's embrace, and when their vision dimmed, it didn't go black. It went white.

And so it was as she watched Cersei Lannister slowly walking to the edge of the parapet, her slippered feet moving as gracefully and precisely as if she were performing some slow gavotte. Lenna knew at once what she intended, but she could not move, herself frozen in abject horror as the wildfire in the distance turned Cersei's golden hair green.

The death-spell was broken, however, by a death-cry. Lenna's gaze pulled away from the dowager and to a black form in the sky that seemed suspended for a terrible moment mid-air before beginning a rapid, destructive descent.

"Cersei!" Lenna cried, reaching forward to bid her run, but the dragon's massive tail clipped the stonework even as Lenna and Tyrion retreated away from the crumbling walkway. The stone seemed to ripple like a tide, ebbing and flowing as if liquid as they watched, in horror, and time seemed to slow again. Cersei, looking perfectly calm with her scarlet robes around her and her green-gold hair fanning out about her head, slipped from their sight in less time than it took to draw a breath.

"Run," Tyrion was at her side again, grabbing Lenna by the hand and pulling her deeper into the Keep and away from the crumbling stone.

There was no time to think about what was happening, no opportunity to even say to herself _Cersei is dead, Tommen is dead, Margaery is dead_. _Hundreds, if not thousands, of the smallfolk are dead_. Only time to focus on the living.

Oberyn Martell was in the throne room, his handsome face filthy with soot. The building had sustained considerable damage. One wall was nearly entirely gone, iron work from the windows rising jagged from the ruined stone. Ash was falling heavily, so thick and white it looked like snow, settling over the floor and the throne itself in a deceptively peaceful fashion.

"Our defenses are holding," Oberyn said grimly, "but barely. We have felled two of the beasts, but there is still the big one. She's riding him."

Almost as soon as he had said it, they heard the tell-tale scraping of claws against the stonework.

"Gods," Tyrion muttered.

They waited with pounding hearts, and they weren't disappointed. The great doors to the throne room opened, and Daenerys Targaryen entered. She radiated fury, fury and absolute grief. Her lovely face as stone, her eyes of amethyst. Not a hair was out of place in the elaborate braid, her leather and fur was clean and without creases, but her face was streaked with ash.

"Have you had quite enough?" Daenerys demanded, her tone savage as she made her way toward them, drawing off her gloves. Her hands were small, childlike, and pure white.

"Three days," Lenna croaked, her throat aching from the smoke. "You said three days."

"That was if you surrendered," Daenerys replied, stopping at the foot of the dais and turning to look at them both. Lenna could see the strain in the young woman's face, the terrible battle she was fighting to control herself. "Why try and evacuate the city if you were going to surrender? My people need not fear me."

"You have roasted _your people_ alive," Lenna retorted, no longer caring to keep her temper in check. Her vision still danced with the lick of green flame.

"I had no idea there was wildfire," Daenerys said, her voice suddenly disturbingly reasonable. "No doubt leftover from my father's reign, but how was I to know it was beneath the Sept?"

"You still attacked the Sept knowing it was being used to house smallfolk," Lenna returned. "You've had your dragons circling us for the last three days. You knew exactly what we were doing. You supposedly advocate for the innocent yet-"

"I attacked the Sept because the usurper and his queen were there," Daenerys replied directly. "I regret that innocent people lost their lives in the fray."

"The fray," Tyrion said tightly, his brows upraised. "That's what you call a fray."

"You've told me yourself, my lord," she continued with an ominous tilt of her silver head, "that some casualties are to be expected. Much as we might regret them."

She took two steps up the dais stood regarding the Iron Throne for a long moment.

"I've dreamed of this day," she said, her voice wistful. "At what cost has it come to me? My children-" her voice broke and Lenna realized she was speaking of the dragons. "Two of them dead. Only three of their kind left, and two of them gone."

Tyrion looked at Daenerys and then at Lenna. "Your grace, I-"

"You would have been my Hand for as long as you liked, and Lady Helenna," she turned and looked at Lenna with eyes brimful of tears. The show of emotion left Lenna taken aback, her own throat thickening. "I always wanted a friend. I would have been yours. Most completely." _Would have_ , Lenna thought feeling the blood drain from her face. "Everyone always wants something, don't they? If they don't want what you can give them, they want you yourself," Daenerys continued on, swallowing so hard Lenna could see the convulsions in her delicate throat. "Nothing is ever enough. It never ends."

"No, your grace," Lenna said, her voice deep with sorrowful truth, "it is never enough."

Daenerys smiled, her eyes still shining, brimming but not yet spilling down her cheeks.

"You are ready, I dare say, for this all to be over."

"Your grace," Lenna protested, not knowing exactly what she meant.

"I will not punish your children," Daenerys said. "Children are precious, innocent. They deserve more than we give them, coming into a world like ours. They will not suffer."

Cold filled Lenna's veins and gray eyes swam before her vision. She did not know if they were Sandor's or Addy's.

"It is not over," Lenna managed, resurrecting those words of Sandor's from so many years before, "until it is over."

"Oh, but my dear lady," Daenerys said, delicately lifting a pale finger at the same time that she raised a pale brow, "it is over."

Drogon's head came level with her own, and Lenna saw herself reflected in his reptilian black eyes. He might have been beautiful. She'd loved the illustrations of the dragons as a girl, found herself tracing her fingers over their scales, the arches of their wings, but face to face with one that was just waiting, _waiting_ , for its mistress' bidding.

"Drac-"

Lenna closed her eyes, waiting for the inevitable, but it did not come. Instead, she heard a sharp rapport and a gasp. When she opened her eyes, Daenerys Targaryen was sitting straight up, leaning forward on the Iron Throne, a crossbow bolt protruding from her breastbone.

Her purple eyes met Lenna's for a moment of sheer surprise, then pale lips, already frothing red, fumbled over the word she had been about to utter. The dragon's head bobbed and swayed as if it was confused, its orange eyes turned to slits and still bearing down on Lenna.

"Run."

Tyrion Lannister was standing to the side of the throne, the crossbow in his arms, his face devoid of fear. He looked at Lenna for a sliver of an instant with something like regret, then his expression contorted. "Run!"

She did, and as she fled on slippered feet, she heard the whispered command from the Targaryen girl's lips and then her ears were full of rushing fire.

A/N: Inspiration is rather hard to come by these days. Also, plans. The best laid ones don't go the way you think they will. But, I still believe in happy endings. _


	66. Chapter 66

Sandor LXVI

Agony.

It had hurt less when his legs had splintered like twigs as he fell into that fucking ravine deadlocked with his brother. He'd have taken the feeling of his ribs fracturing and puncturing his own lungs over the complete and crushing pain that came almost as soon as they reached White Harbor. He'd had an inkling, a twinge of knowing, as soon as he saw that it was Wyman Manderly himself that came to greet them in the courtyard of the New Castle, his granddaughters grey-faced and somber beside him. Neither of them would meet his eye, though he'd seen the younger one start as if arrow-shot as soon as he stepped through the gate, her hand flying to her sister's shoulder, the pale lips open in surprise. His father-in-law, once so fat and jovial, looked wizened, deflated, as if the skeleton of the man inside had itself shrunk, leaving behind a skin too large. The eyes, though, those were the same, just like Lenna's only clouded with age and trouble.

Though the bedraggled company was headed by Jon Snow, captained by Jaime Lannister, it was to Sandor that Wyman went, his gait uneven and slow, his snowy whiskers drooping and trembling as he held Sandor's eyes. Of course he came to him first. They were kin. Clegane's own breath froze, burning his lungs even more painfully than it had on the other side of the Wall, his heart slow thunder, his vision itself pulsating in his one good eye.

"We received a raven," Wyman said with shaking lips, his once-strong voice now tremorous with care and age. He was bracing both of his hands on his staff, a gnarled length of driftwood as twisted as his old hands. The fingers fluttered, beyond the old lord's control, speaking of his agitation, of his grief. Manderly cleared his throat, lifting his chin up, almost as if in defiance. "Daenerys Targaryen is dead, but the capital is utterly destroyed. King's Landing, they say, is no more."

Sandor had felt dizzy, reaching outward blindly only to be caught by Wyman's surprisingly strong grip. He curved his own hand into Wyman's bright tunic, the rough woolen bunching in his grasp like her handkerchief once had, the vivid blue violent through the gray haze of his desperation.

"What are you saying?" he rasped, unblinking, swallowing the panic that had risen up and threatened to choke him.

"She was there, my boy," Manderly said in a voice like a wasteland, utterly devoid of feeling, of life. Wyman reached out and put his hand on Sandor's cheek, bracing both of them with fatherly care and the stirrings of a shared grief. Sandor's chest clenched oddly, his eye burning. When the tears found their way out of the old lord's eyes, he realized they were in response to his own trickling wetly into the wild tangle of his beard. He could taste the salt. "Olenna Tyrell sent word that Lenna had gone to the capital just a few days before the siege."

"The children-" Sandor's stomach fell into an abyss of ice and he felt as if he was mired in quicksand. _Addy_ , he thought, his mind full of her bonny face, her rosebud mouth, the great grey eyes and the dark curls. _And my son_ -

"Safe," Wyman replied quickly, a modicum of spark in his face. Relief flooded darkly through him, and Sandor reared his head back. "The bairns are with Olenna on their way to Highgarden," Wyman replied stiffly. "But there has been no other word."

"She's alive," Sandor said frantically, more to himself that to Manderly. "Manderly, she has to be." He didn't know how much he actually believed it, but Wyman Manderly had tightened his grip on Sandor's jaw, the spotted hand still sinewy and strong, but his eyes were still dim. He said nothing, just shut his ancient, tired eyes and pulled Sandor's head down until they were pressed brow to brow.

When Wyman released him, Sandor looked at the girls, grown into careworn women, and took in their glistening cheeks, the dark purpling under their red-rimmed eyes. Wylla turned her face into Wynna's shoulder and Sandor clenched his fist.

"She isn't dead," he repeated, and Wynna's face went pained.

"Sandor-" she said, her voice low and musical, so like her aunt's. "Please-"

"No," he said emphatically. "She's not fucking dead." He didn't wait for another response, another denial, and neither could be bring himself to look over his shoulder when Brienne of Tarth shouted for him. He walked through the halls of the New Castle until he found the ramparts, and he stood there for some time, his hands chapped and red from the cold, his lips dry, his eyes stinging from either the salt of the wind or his own weeping, he didn't much care which.

"We're going in the morning."

Jaime Lannister looked like a wraith, his tawny skin gray, the bright hair long since beginning to show strands of steel instead of gold.

"She's alive," Sandor rasped again, and from the way his lungs filled with air he wasn't sure he'd breathed in several hours. _And yet you live_.

Jaime cocked his head and bit the flesh inside his cheeks, hollowing them even further, his handsome face almost a death's head.

"If she is," he croaked, "and I dearly hope she is, then you will find her."

"Aye," he replied savagely, "and if she isn't, I'll kill you. And your brother. And your damned sister. I'll kill the whole fucking lot of you. If it wasn't for you damned Lannisters-"

He couldn't finish the thought, too consumed with the bubbling grief, the denial.

"You're right," Jaime replied, his eyes red and his jaw trembling beneath the two weeks' worth of graying stubble. "And I'll let you. Lannisters always pay their debts. But first," he said solemnly, "we hope that it doesn't come to that and that you find her...safe...somewhere."

Sandor cursed time. It had taken a week and a half to make from Winterfell to White Harbor, and it would take them another week by ship from there to King's Landing. Old Wyman had a fleet ready for them, not that Sandor thought it would do them much good. The army travelled, but if Bran Stark was correct, it hardly mattered. They were sailing to a graveyard.

They left with the next tide, there was no time to rest. There was a raven that evening of their arrival, for which Sandor was grateful in the most pitiful way. Oberyn Martell held the city. It was the first news that there were any survivors at all, and he didn't miss Jaime Lannister's beryl-bright gaze across the table from him. Some had managed to weather the siege, not many, but those that remained were swiftly running out of food and supplies. It was a plea more than a message, and Sandor could hear the prince's desperation.

They were a grim-faced crew. The nightly council meetings aboard the ship were more opportunities for them to silently swill ale in their collective dark humor than it was for any kind of planning. There was nothing to plan until their _knew_. Knew how bad the devastation was. Knew who had survived, who had perished.

 _Fucking gods._

He didn't know how he kept breathing, the same dogged determination to put one foot in front of the other that had kept him alive for the last thirty-odd years was the only reason he rose in the mornings. It was mostly habit rather than will. He felt as if he was wrapped in seaweed, dark and grasping as he frantically attempted to shrug it off. There was nothing he could do to escape it, no way to cut himself free. He settled for a gasp here and there, an explosive intake of breath, of memory, as his mind swirled with images of her caught up in the flames of dragon-fire, buried in a ruddy rubble of smoking stone. He would wake suddenly in the night, sure that he had heard her cry out for him, only for his eyes adjust to the darkness to nothing but the timbers above his bunk and the intermittent creaking of the ship.

Their first view of the capital was not a heartening one. There had been no call, but every last man on the ship was standing on the deck as they made their way into the Bay. Even from a distance, the sight was harrowing. The Red Keep was still smoldering, tendrils of black smoke rising into the impossibly blue winter sky. Even this far South, his breath stood out as a white smoke in the morning breeze, short puffs that he could not control. Sandor thought for a moment that he was looking at one of the illustrations of Old Valyria that had been in Lenna's books. He hadn't hated it when she had read those stories to him, the tales of the Doom of the city with its broken, blackened towers.

"Steady," came the voice at his shoulder and he started. Brienne of Tarth stood there, her unalluring features so still she seemed fixed in place, like a wooden effigy in a Sept, only so pale she might have been marble. It was an unlovely face, but there was strength in it, right down to the unflinching expression in her bright blue eyes, the only measure of beauty she'd been afforded. It was a steady gaze, and as much as it irked him, he appreciated the empathy that he saw in them.

She and Bronn had practically taken shifts watching he and Jaime Lannister since the news had broken in White Harbor. He reckoned they were both afraid that one or the other might do something reckless, something irrevocable. But he and the Kingslayer were made of firmer stuff than that.

 _No,_ he thought, _you're just dead men walking. No point in killing what's already dead_.

"'M fine," he muttered to her bitterly, his fingers biting so hard into the wood of the railing that he was sure he'd given himself splinters.

"No, you're not," she rejoined stoically. "We none of us are."

That was the fucking truth. He could stay upright, keep his heart beating, but they weren't much better than cunt wights, the lot of them, stumbling about the ship's deck in aimless wandering in the long days it took them to cut through the waters of the Fingers, to sail into the Blackwater Bay. Such a strange, pervasive _nothingness_ had settled about him in his waking hours. It was only when he was asleep-

He growled, looking at the dark expanse of water that was still methodically lapping at the fuming wharves and the jagged rocks below the Red Keep's twisted and collapsing towers. He did not like being there again, did not like seeing that damned castle rising above him, and liked even less that instead of grand, as it had once been, it was now blackened and broken like the ruins of the old Dragonpit, only the signs of destruction fresher and more devastating as his imagination insisted on conjuring images of her, of _them_ , roasting with the city under the hot breath of Daenerys Targaryen's fucking mounts.

At least the silver-haired bitch was dead. There were few enough details, nothing but the news that Daenerys Targaryen had died in the siege, but it warmed him to think that she was gone, that if there was anything to rebuild she would not stand in the way of the Seven Kingdoms rising from the ashes, from putting the whole last twenty years behind them.

 _But who will put it to rights_?

He wished they'd brought the cripple, wished that Bran Stark could just tell him if she was dead. As vociferously as he insisted that she was _not_ , the shades of doubt had begun to hound him. He felt, perversely, that he should _know_ if she was dead, that the wound that had started to bleed at a trickle so many years earlier would hemorrhage if she had been killed, would have killed him by now, too, his body going cold as his head pounded, sweat pouring off of him as he growled and sputtered. He'd seen men die of bleeding before, saw how they went briefly mad just before they slackened and turned gray. If she was dead, surely he would have suffered the same by now, and since he hadn't-

Hope was not something that Sandor Clegane was prone to indulging. It was frail, tiny, unformed, but bright and piercing and white, seated in his abdomen and fluttering against his ribcage at the most inopportune moments.

 _Folly,_ he thought, his good eye scanning the wreckage that had once been the capital. If she had been in the city when Daenerys had attacked-

He forced himself to remain thoughtless until they had docked at what had once been the Mudgate. He remembered the last time he'd been there, charging madly into the darkness and the green flame against Stannis Baratheon's men. It had seemed hell at the time, but now, he almost wished for it. Things had been simpler then when it was easy to know where a man stood, what could happen based on a series of predictable events. There was even a comfort in knowing that if certain things came to pass, your head would be mounted on the walls. At least a death by the sword would have been swift, and not this interminable and excruciating waiting.

They traversed the city in silence, that large company of battered commanders and exhausted fighting men. Some of them had come from here, of course, bred in the city's various slums or just outside its gates. Still, there was no sound, nothing save the soft clip-clop of the horses' hooves and the tramp of the men's boots in the thick layer of ash that coated the cobbled streets, the contours of the stones so shrouded in the powder that men lost their footing and stumbled, arms flailing wildly, borne up by their fellows as they made their solemn way through what had once been the greatest city of Westeros.

No signs of life. The great Sept of Baelor was a ruin, its great dome caved in like a soft-boiled egg with its end cracked off. He wondered vaguely what they would find if they opened the charred doors. Another army of the dead, he wagered, but this one black and charred, nothing but jagged bones and gaping eyes and blistered teeth, a mass of death. It was there, they'd heard, that both the king and the queen had been consumed by fire, the whole place going up in green flame when Daenerys Targaryen's dragon had inadvertently ignited a hidden cache of wildfire concealed in the crypts as they ministered to the terrified poor of their city, hiding in the great structure in the belief that it could protect them.

The shattered glass, craggy and glinting against the sky, told another story, and he hoped, almost prayed, that the ends of those inside had been as quick and instantaneous as possible. The thought of all that fire made him shudder and grit his teeth involuntarily.

They spotted no signs of life until they reached the north side of the city, beyond the melted statue of Baelor on its fracture pedestal, as they approached Rhaenys' Hill. There they spied the paler, thinner smoke of cooking fires and his hands tightened around the reins.

It was a hard climb for an exhausted army, but he and Brienne made it together, urging the horses along with faint clicks of the tongue and nary a word between them. Jaime Lannister rode at her other side, his face a tight, stricken portrait of pain.

A lookout must have spotted them. A contingent of men were approaching them on foot, and at their head was a tall man that Sandor recognized even from the little distance. Their party dismounted, and Sandor clenched his fists and set his jaw, the sensation in his breast less like a fluttering and more like thrashing, like a bird in a snare fighting to get free, scenting its own blood.

"We wouldn't have made it much longer," Oberyn said, grasping Jon Snow and Jaime Lannister by the elbow like a fellow soldier, surprising Sandor when he reached for him in the same way. "We are desperate for supplies."

Oberyn had set about to shouting orders immediately, the weary company moving as quickly as they could to bring in what stores they had brought. The Dragonpit itself was being used as a shelter, those that had survived the siege huddled inside. There were several hundred, if not a thousand, Oberyn related, never pausing in his work but giving an accounting as food was sorted and distributed, as medicines and medical supplies were counted and ferried where needed.

"They trickled in for nearly a week after," he said, at last stopping to survey his men as they worked. "It has been days since the last. I think this is all of them. All that remain of the citizens of King's Landing."

Sandor looked about them bleakly, trying to making himself ask.

"My brother," Jaime bit out. "My sister."

Oberyn thumbed his nose and looked at the ground with a shake of his head. "I'm sorry, Ser Jaime."

Jaime swallowed but his shoulders fell, just enough for Sandor to see it, like watching a great oak fracture after a lightning strike. He was still standing, but it was taking all of his effort, all of his mettle to keep his feet.

"And now-Clegane," Oberyn said softly, his dark eyes like dragonglass and his cheek hollow. Sandor understood at once.

"Where is she?" he asked airlessly. Oberyn looked at him expressionlessly.

"Come."

Sandor didn't look back, but followed after the prince. They meandered through the hordes of people toward a stand of Martell tents, bright orange and red in the dust of the Dragonpit. They were fluttering with activity, women and men bustling around prostrate forms laying on bedrolls and makeshift cots. Some were so covered in bandages that only their noses were exposed. The air smelled of roasted-flesh, burnt hair, and sour rot. Sandor's stomach heaved, the memory of it always fresh in his own nostrils but the reality of it making it difficult for him to swallow back the bile that threatened.

"Is she-" he choked just as Oberyn called out

"Lenna-"

A woman was bent over a rough table, her back to them, dark hair in a long, ragged braid. Her skirts were tattered and blackened and he could make a out a flash of bandaged ankle. She straightened at Oberyn's call and turned.

His heart was thundering so loudly that he could hear nothing else.

"Sandor." Her saw her lips form the word rather but was too deafened by his own pumping blood to hear it, and he wasn't quite sure he believed his sight as she picked her way through the injured and made her way toward him. It seemed to him that she was coming from a great distance away, the sounds around him returning but dull, as if his ears were filled with water, but it was her face, her eyes. She was limping a little, and her left hand was bandaged tightly, the sleeve of her gown slit to accommodate the dressing. There was a plaster at her breast and shoulder above the cut of her dress, a few shiny fingers of burn visible at the edges, curling like flames themselves. His lungs worked, seeming to fill with water, but the moment her right hand touched his, warm and dry, it was like being heaved above the sea's surface after a great wave has passed, and he gasped as he clutched her to him.

Her whole body was wracked with sobs, but he could not care, could not do anything but wrap her in his arms and hold her in place, his own face pressed against her shoulder, then his lips were on her pulse in her neck and then on her chapped, dry lips.

She'd never tasted sweeter.

"Alive," he heard her say. "You're alive."

"Aye," he answered, his hand tracing her cheek and tangling in her snarled hair, avoiding the healing burns and the plaster. "I am. And you. You are alive."

"Aye," she replied, her tears cutting tracks through the grime on her cheeks. _Soot_ , he thought, and he wiped them away, cutting swathes of clean skin on her face, the paleness all the brighter in contrast to the filth and the angry red of the burn at her throat. He could see the singed ends of the curls about her face, brittle and brown, and his fingers touched them lightly as he wondered what the hells had happened. "We are alive."

"How?" he asked, and she took his hand in hers and held it to her cheek, then slumped against him, the crown of her head pressed into his sternum as her knees seemed to give out beneath her.

It didn't last but a moment, and then she was back on her feet, her hand in his as she pulled him back toward the approaching company. Despite the ash and soot, her singed hair and bandaged the skin, her gown in tatters about her, she was every inch the lady.

Her eyes searched his face, distressed, until he saw the realization cross her features as swiftly as a sword strike, her hand flying to his face. "Sandor, your eye-"

"Not now," he replied brusquely, grasping her by the wrist and pressing it to his lips. "What are you doing here?" It was an unfair question, one with a difficult answer. She furrowed her brow.

"Records," she said, her lips trying to smile and failing. "I try to keep track of the treatments for the medics. It helps them make sure everyone is taken care of. And I have been collecting the names of the people who are here, trying to take an account of-"

 _Gods_ , he thought. _A roll-call of the dead_.

"The others-" Sandor started, but Lenna shook her head.

"There are few," she replied. "So many dead. The King. The Queen. Cersei and Baelish and…"

"The Imp," he said flatly, thinking of Jaime Lannister looking old and swaying on his feet.

She nodded, the tip of her nose going red. "Yes. And Tyrion." She said the name quickly, like it was a knife that cut her. She put her hand on his arm. "The children-"

"Safe at Highgarden," he said quickly. "I know. Your aunt sent word to your father."

She swiped at her eyes. "She smuggled them out with Gilly before the siege." She looked up at Sandor and he pressed his mouth to hers again. The skin around her mouth came away clean from the bristles of his beard, her fingertips burying themselves in the hair of his cheeks, grown long and bushy over the Northern winter. "There is so much to say, Sandor."

She was right, as she usually was, but there was not time just then. The two of them followed Oberyn, patiently waiting with averted eyes, and he took them back toward the entrance of the Dragonpit. The supplies had been distributed and the men were busily setting up their tents. Oberyn bypassed them altogether, leading Sandor and Lenna toward another tent in Martell orange and red, this one clearly his own.

Inside, Jon Snow was standing pensively off to the side, his troubled face visibly relaxing when he caught sight of Lenna. Jaime Lannister, who had been sitting, rose to his feet abruptly and allowed himself to be wrapped in Lenna's arms when she flew to him.

For the briefest moment, Jaime's eyes met Sandor's, and there was only grieved relief in them before the Kingslayer bent his head and pressed his cheek against Lenna's. The two of them stood that way for a long time, and Sandor didn't even begrudge Jaime the comfort of it. Sandor saw that the Lannister was weeping, his face contorted in the effort to hold back his anguish, his mouth parted in despair.

"What in the seven hells happened?" Jaime asked at last, drawing himself up to his full height and looking down on Lenna in entreaty. It was the question that had weighed on all of them, of that Sandor was sure, but which they had not been able to ask.

Lenna drew Jaime's hand into hers and pressed it, her own mouth parted as if unable to speak. Brienne came to her side and rested a square hand on her shoulder. Sandor did not miss the tenderness in Jaime Lannister's eyes as he looked at the warrior, nor did he not see the doleful interest in Jon Snow's face.

 _Aegon Targaryen's face_ , he corrected himself.

There had been little enough time to digest _that_.

"Betrayed," Lenna said softly. "We were betrayed."

"We know," Jon replied with equal quietude. "Bran told us."

Lenna looked at him quizzically, but then shook her head as if it to chase away a question. "I would ask a thousand questions," she started, "but they will wait, I think."

Brienne nodded.

"Sit," Oberyn said, startling Sandor. He'd quite forgotten about the Dornish prince. "Please."

There was a council table surrounded by chairs, and they sank into them gratefully. Lenna took the one next to Sandor, drawing his hand into hers and resting it in her lap. Her fingers were busy in his, stroking the length of them, squeezing, even as her voice stayed steady and her eyes clear.

"It was Petyr Baelish," she continued, and Sandor felt his blood rise. He must have shifted because Lenna squeezed his fingers, glancing at him askance. "It doesn't matter anymore. He betrayed us. Every last one of us, including _her_."

He wasn't surprised that the Targaryen girl hadn't seen it coming. He'd not thought her particularly bright when he'd first met her, and had become convinced during their brief stay in Dragonstone that she would not be clear-sighted enough to be competent, even with her army of Dothraki madmen and passionless Unsullied.

"We were ready for her," Lenna said with a brief nod of her head. "As ready as we could be. We tried to evacuate, but she'd set the dragons on the perimeter. Some managed to escape, but not many. As you see," she gestured lamely to the Dragonpit. It was illuminated by the setting sun, ruddy as the Red Keep as it reflected the flaming sky and the countless cookfires that were being lit for the evening meal. "Many went to the Sept of Baelor, hiding in the crypts. There was a cache of dragonfire. Not even Tyrion or I knew about it. It hadn't been there before."

"Then where-" Jaime began.

"Cersei," Lenna whispered. "She had it moved there during the conflict with the Sparrow. Just in case. In the end, it was what doomed Tommen and Margaery. They were there, comforting their people, when one of the dragons- Drogon, I think, though it does not matter- spewed fire at the Sept and the fire reached the cache and-" her voice trailed off. She took a shuddering breath and Sandor slipped his hand into hers. Her fingers tightened around his but she did not raise her eyes.

"It was fast, at least, that's what we were told. We heard the explosion in the Keep itself. Looked out just in time to see the green fireball."

Jaime made a desperate sound and sat up straighter. Sandor saw the strain in his temples, the press of his good hand against the wood of the tabletop. In his own mind, he saw the young king, and remembered when he was just a lad, a sweet-faced, golden child, and wondered if that was what Jaime was thinking of, too. The pain of it lanced through him as he recalled the brief anguish of fearing his own children dead, and the intense relief of knowing they were safe. Jaime Lannister had lost not one, but two sons, and the iron that had set itself in his heart against the Kingslayer years before yielded.

Lenna did not relent, her hands against his stilling in her lap. Her eyes were still clear, free of tears, and her voice was even, but she was staring resolutely at the polished surface of the table and avoiding their eyes. She took a deep breath and he felt the expansion of her ribs against his arm, almost crackling with the effort. "And then she came at the Keep. But Prince Oberyn and Prince Trystane, they held them off. Felled two of the dragons with the scorpions. They are at the bottom of the bay, now." Lenna bit her lip and looked into her lap, pain written in the deep lines on her forehead. "Prince Trystane fell in the siege."

"My sister. My brother," Jaime said tightly, a vein throbbing in his forehead. He was pale, his skin tight against his cheekbones, his jaw. He was shaking so hard that he seemed to waver, like a mirage in the deserts, like an apparition in the dark. "I'm the last."

Lenna looked up at him with great, glowing eyes. "Cersei was knocked from the ramparts when one of the dragon's fell. His body took out most of the inner wall. She had the misfortune to be standing there when his tail clipped the stonework." She gazed steadily back at Jaime Lannister, though effort was showing itself in the glittering of her eyes. He had cocked his head as he looked at her, his teeth gritted together like a man beneath the field-surgeon's amputation saw, like he was being dismembered piece by piece before their eyes.

"And Tyrion?" Jaime choked, his eyes full of pain but that damn chiseled jaw again set bravely.

Lenna swallowed hard, but when she spoke it was the keening of a bereaved child. She, who had remained so upright through what could not have been an easy telling, bent double with her head almost touching the table. She let go of Sandor's hands and braced herself against the table's edge, the fingers of her right hand white, and those of her left seeping dark blood through the bandages that had been tightly wrapped. She took a great gasp, a sob. "I'm so sorry, Jaime," she said, her face a mask of grief and loss and guilt. "I'm so sorry. Tyrion...he...he died for me," she managed, looking at Jaime with her throat working. "If it wasn't for me-"

"How?" Jaime prompted tightly. His voice lacked malice, lacked blame, and Sandor knew he just simply needed to _know_. If it had been him questioning the Imp about what happened to Lenna, he would need the same.

She reared up as if facing an execution, all of a sudden steady again, like a ship rolled on its side might right itself right on the brink of capsizing. "I tried. You must all believe me. I tried to talk sense into her until the last. We were in the throne room. The Keep was falling about our ears, the ash so thick it was like snow," her voice became high and strained but she pressed on, her hands before her face as if she was conjuring the sight again. "It was white like snow, too. Beautiful. Dense. But not regular ash, you see, but incinerated-" her voice failed her again and her throat worked, the red curls of the burn on her neck almost glowing against the pale skin, her tears cutting a salty path across them that Sandor knew had to sting quite badly. She closed her eyes and shook her head, her mouth working as she fought for the word. "She rounded on me. She would not listen. I was trying to get her to see that she couldn't just _destroy_ her way to the crown-" her voice died and she took a moment to gather herself again. He'd seen her do it before, cling to the facts when her emotions threatened to choke her. Her eyes were dull. Her spine went straight, her hands splayed on the table before her, her chin level but not lifted and her eyes- he hated the look in her eyes. "The throne room was destroyed, the western wall entirely gone, and she was intent on setting the dragon on anyone who got in her way." She paused. "I have read many histories, what little good they did me, and seen many depictions of Aerys the Mad. There is no question that she was his daughter."

Sandor clenched his eyes at that, thinking about the strange glint in the girl's purple eyes.

"She had made her decision, there was nothing for me to do. I couldn't move, I barely understood what was happening. She was halfway through the command, and Tyrion, he- he shot her. Through the breast with a crossbow. She said the word with her last breath, and while I managed to run, Tyrion was not fast enough."

Jaime looked at his hands and sniffed, rubbing his hand over his brow. He seemed to have aged a decade in the course of a few scant hours, the golden sheen he'd always had dulled like old bronze, green eyes tired.

"He saved my life," Lenna said quietly. "He knew he wouldn't escape, but he saved me."

"He loved you," Jaime said, "as did my sister. More than they knew how. As I do. Tyrion did just as he wished to. He paid the debt-"

"Please, don't speak of that-"

"In the end, the Imp was a hero," Oberyn said, shifting the attention of the rest of the gathered assembly. It had almost been like there had been no one else in the tent save Lenna and the Kingslayer, and Sandor found it in himself to reflect, not for the first time, how stange and tight their hold had always been on her, how she had loved them despite herself in a way he sure as fuck never had. She and Jaime were alike in their grief, and it filled the whole tent like smoke or incense, strangely holy. In another time, Sandor would have hated the intimacy of what was passing between them, the way his wife clung to the Kingslayer's gaze, but he was also aware that he could not give her the comfort she needed, the absolution.

"You will write it down," Jon Snow said, speaking softly from his place. _Aegon Targaryen_ , Sandor reminded himself again, though he doubted he would ever learn to think of him by that name. "Such deeds should not be forgotten."

Lenna shook her head and stared at her hands. "No. None of it should be forgotten."

"A wise command, your grace," Oberyn said, and Jon started when he realized the title was his, lips open as he struggled to determine how to respond.

"I am not-" he stuttered.

"You are," Lenna replied. She was slumped in her chair, hugging herself with her face turned away from them all. "You are the heir."

"We have just defeated Daenerys Targaryen," Jon began in protest, "what makes you think the people will accept _me_ as their ruler, even if I wanted to be?"

"You've no choice in the matter," Lenna said perfunctorily. "And they will accept you. Because of who you are. Of what you represent. You are the old ways and the new, the North and the South together. In you, the wars of our lifetimes are balanced. And it doesn't make any difference whatsoever what you want."

"I am a bastard-" the young man continued, almost defiantly.

"You were never a bastard," Lenna pushed back. "You know that now. Everyone will know. But you were still Ned Stark's blood. And your father was a Crown Prince, the heir to the throne. That makes you the rightful heir to the Seven Kingdoms."

"But Princess Myrcella," Jon said tightly. "She lives?"

"Aye," Oberyn replied, twisting the signet on his little finger and staring into the flames. Even bedraggled, the Viper still seemed preternaturally at ease. "And we've thought that through as well."

Jaime was now looking at Lenna askance, his mouth opened as if to speak. _He knows that she knows_ , Sandor thought, _and he means to confess_. But Lenna pressed her lips and shook her head.

"Myrcella had been betrothed to my nephew," Oberyn said, sadness making the Dornish accent darker, more mournful. "They were a devoted couple, and she will be devastated when news of his death reaches Dorne. That being said, however, in light of her brother the King's untimely death, she is the Baratheon heir apparent. There will be some who wish to support her claim, that I believe, and Lenna agrees, that Myrcella would decline it if she could. However, you are right, your grace, in thinking that it will be difficult for some to take to a new Targaryen line. So, Lady Helenna and I have developed a proposal."

"Which is?" Jon pressed with all the enthusiasm of a man facing the block.

"As one of her guardians," Oberyn flicked his eyes at Jaime without any attempt at subtlety, "I would support the idea of a marriage alliance between Princess Myrcella and yourself."

Jon sat back heavily on the stone he had requisitioned as a stool and let out a deep breath.

"Your brother-" he began.

"Doran will agree," Oberyn replied firmly, cocking his eyebrow then in Jaime's direction. "And you, Lannister?"

Jaime swallowed, then looked at Jon with a bright burning in his face. "There will be no objection from me," he said lowly. "It is rather clever, actually." His eyes darted to Lenna. "I suppose it should come as no surprise."

"Yes," Lenna replied drily, her lips barely moving. "My schemes have worked out so well for all of us."

"Your grace?" Oberyn asked as if he was asking if the man preferred wine or beer and not if he was willing to take on the Iron Throne and a bride besides.

Jon nodded sharply. "If the Princess will have me. If it is for the good of the realm."

"Then it is settled," Lenna said. "And I am tired." Sandor felt her shiver. "I would rest."

"Of course," he murmured, and watched as she retreated toward the tent door, wondering if he should follow her.

"Go to her," Jaime said at a whisper from across the table.

With a faintly sheepish look around the circle, their faces like carven statues in the Sept, he rose to his feet and followed, letting the tent flap close behind him. Lenna led him to a smaller tent nearby and stooped to enter. It was well-furnished, considering the circumstances, with Dornish cushions and a soft sleeping pallet. She stood looking at it with her right hand clenched at her side. The sun had set, the shadows falling dark purple and blue in the late twilight, the warm flicker of the fires and braziers outside flaring across the orange fabric of the tent. She turned and looked at him, her eyes red and glassy.

There was so much he wanted to ask her, to hear. He wanted to know how she had escaped that ruin of a Keep with only a few minor burns. He wanted to know why she had gone to King's Landing in the first place, he wanted to hear about Addy, their _son_. He wanted to tend her, to spread the salve on her blistered skin and her spirit, too, but not tonight. Not in this moment. For now, she only needed him to _be_.

They would, he told him, have tomorrow, after all.

"Rest, Lenna," he said, going to her and taking her hand. Whatever the reunion he had imagined, this wasn't it. He reckoned they'd had enough of them for him to have learned by now that they didn't involve running into each other's arms, jubilant embraces, frantic caresses. They were fraught with pain and things that could not be said, heavy silences. But they were also long moments of comfort, of letting the amity they'd shared for so long pass unimpeded through a glance, the press of a hand, their warmth as they simply _were_ next to each other.

She let him pull her down into the bedroll, turning on her side to fit her back to his front as she pulled his arm around her tightly. He felt her shaking with crying though she made no sound. Without speaking, he pulled the covering over them and rocked her against him, his lips at her ear making soft, wordless sounds in a desperate and clumsy effort to comfort her. She turned in his arms, her hands balled into fists and pressed against his chest, and she came apart with a torrent of tears soaking his neck, plastering his hair to his skin.

"Shhh," he whispered, his hands loosening the rough braid, his fingers running gently through the snarls. "It's over. It's all over."

"Is it?" she asked brokenly, her voice as tired as he felt, bone-weary and broken.

He made no answer, just pressed his mouth against the crown of her head and held her, grateful that she was there, perversely satisfied that she was sobbing and fractured and burned and _breathing_ against him, her pain only one more reminder that she yet lived, that he'd found her once again, and he wished, so persistently it was almost faith, that he was right, and that the storm had finally passed.

A/N: You didn't abandon me after the last chapter! I was terrified of posting it...so glad you've stuck around. Fast approaching the end here, folks. This has been quite a caper, and I never thought this is where it would go. Hope it works satisfactorily enough for you all. I long ago gave up trying to predict how things would end, but given what's happened in this little alternative universe, I can see this outcome. Happy endings are on their way, never fear, and I hope that will be enough to salve any sore feelings about how things turned out. On another note, I have another, much lighter, piece in the works set for after this. If you are interested in reading a snippet or two and giving your thoughts, feel free to shoot me a PM. Read and review, as always! Thanks for sticking with us.


	67. Chapter 67

Lenna LXVII

Sandor had once told her that it wasn't over until it was over, and the phrase had taken to echoing through her head in the weeks and the months that followed the siege of King's Landing and the end of the Wars. Instead of conveying a hope, though, it now simply expressed the unending work that still lay before Lenna and Sandor and all the rest as they endeavored to keep pace with the messy business of reconstructing a kingdom.

The very air seemed to have changed, and it did soothe her somewhat. She had not quite realized how fraught and heavy she had felt in the past months-no, the past _years_ \- until the omnipresent threat of imminent destruction was removed. There was no Night King, no Dragon Queen, no Joffrey and no Frey, just the bedraggled and aggrieved remnants of a once-great city and the urgent task of consolidating power before the hastily filled cracks weakened and crumbled away.

"The lords will not rise up," Jaime Lannister had said from his seat at the table. Most of the forces had pulled out of the Dragonpit, the survivors of King's Landing funneled into temporary lodgings and encampments elsewhere in the surrounding Crownlands, Riverlands, and the Reach. Lenna had been pleased with the outpouring of aid from the high-borns. It had been rather unexpected, but she knew that Jaime was correct. The lords would not rise up, there was no desire to, the disgruntled old guard either dead or too aged to care. "The world has changed," he'd continued, the silver at his temples catching the low light of the sunset, "and it is no longer theirs."

That, or, as Lenna thought more likely, the feuding old lords of the last thirty years were simply too tired to care.

It was a feeling with which she was all too familiar. Weariness was bonedeep in them all, but it helped that there seemed to be a stirring of spring afoot, the breezes warmer, a very tingle of newness, fertile and green, that was only partly to do with their work and the naming of a new king.

"We cannot be so sure," Jon Snow had replied hesitantly. His dark eyes were always wary, his words always measured and almost stiff. He was a great battle commander, of that Lenna was quite sure, and even an able leader of men in her own experience at Winterfell. Even Sandor readily attested to his martial ability, but since it had become apparent that he was the heir to the throne, the future king of the Seven Kingdoms, an unanticipated guardedness had descended on the young man like a shrouding fog. He had always been a quiet lad, Lenna knew him of old, but now he was even more reserved, and where he had once been bold he was now cautious. Not at all undesirable qualities, to be sure, but in such times of upheaval, Lenna wished he was a touch more assured.

"We have not had one refusal," Lenna had said, trying to smile a little at him across the table reassurance. It was strewn with papers, mostly raven-borne messages of support from the various Houses across the realm. The response to the proposed union between Jon and Myrcella had been overwhelmingly positive, just as Lenna had hoped it would be. Those who might have bucked against the idea of a new Targaryen dynasty were soothed by the idea of continuity, where those who had hated Joffrey and doubted Tommen, or at least Tommen's parentage, were assuaged at the idea of a shift of power, especially one that favored a man they all saw as theirs. It must have been a painful thing for young Jon to have spent his whole life being the unwanted bastard son now that all of the North was clamoring to own.

"Yes, but-" he' started, but he was unable to finish the protest, clapping his mouth shut.

"All of the Lords Paramount are behind you, your grace," Lenna replied, keeping her voice low and even. "And where they go, so will their bannermen follow."

"Except for Baratheon," he said sulkily. Lenna smiled knowingly.

"And its lady shall be in agreement," Prince Oberyn replied solemnly, "just as soon as we may go to her."

Early on, it had been obvious that such a delicate errand must be completed in person and not via raven. The young woman was recently bereaved, not only of her future husband, but her mother and brother as well. Of all of them who had lost someone dear, and nearly all of them had, it was for Myrcella that Lenna felt the most pain. Myrcella, good and lovely Myrcella, who had even less control or agency than Lenna herself ever had, forced to walk the line of a perfect princess, to be what everyone wished her to be, and who would now be called upon, once again, to give up what she knew and loved and sacrifice on the altar of a realm that did not fully appreciate what it was asking of her.

A sacrifice that Lenna herself would ask her to make. She was glad she had at least a week at sea to compose herself, to try and put together the words in such a way that she didn't feel as if she was wielding a knife, an executioner's sword. A way that didn't feel like a smiling betrayal.

"When do you leave?" Jon had asked, looking nervously at Lenna. She had straightened in her chair and folded her hands primly, just as she did every time she had to do something she didn't wish to.

"In two days time," Lenna had replied, flicking her eyes to Sandor. Her husband was no more pleased than she was. In fact, at first it had not occurred to any of them to send him with her. There had even been talk of setting him up as the garrison commander, but a hot flare of his temper had reminded them all that he was still, somewhere, the Hound, albeit on a tightly controlled leash of his own devising. Jaime Lannister had volunteered for the job in his stead, his hollow cheeks twitching and his eyes furtively finding Brienne of Tarth, also tasked with building up the new king's forces. Lenna had been well-pleased with both Jaime's offer and the way he looked at her friend, and so Sandor would sail with her and Lenna allowed herself to consider the possibility that Brienne's painfully restrained devotion to the Kingslayer was not as one-sided as she had feared.

Once the business in Dorne was completed, and Lenna had no doubt that Myrcella would acquiesce, they would make haste to White Harbor, two weeks in fair weather by ship. As the great Sept of Baelor was ruined, it had been decided that Jon's coronation would be held in the Sept of the Snows. Lenna had been wide-eyed with disbelief at the decision, proud as she was of her family's holdings, but confused as to why it had not been the Starry Sept in Oldtown that had been selected. Aegon I Targaryen had been crowned by the High Septon there after the Conquest, and she rather liked the symmetry of that, but no. Jon Snow had insisted that he was a Northerner, and since the Sept of Baelor had been destroyed, he wanted to be crowned among his own people.

He wanted to go home, one last time.

Lenna's heart ached for him. No matter what they told her of his prowess on the field, the fearlessness he had showed in his confrontation with the unholy terrors north of the Wall, she still saw the boy she had once known, the young man in Winterfell, at once desperate to make his name and still unsure and browbeaten by his origins and the treatment of even those that loved him.

Now that his heritage was no longer in question and widely accepted, it had not dispelled the years and years of keenly felt inadequacy.

She hoped very much that they would be back in White Harbor before the end of the month. Oberyn's ship was a swift and luxurious one, and the time aboard was quite pleasant all told, but she still found herself more than a little restless, often rising to walk to decks in the night. When she slept, all she saw was smoke and flame. She'd been unable to fully accept Sandor's attentions since, which grieved them both though he said not a word, just held her silent once he'd let his hands go still as she stiffened. Sandor had never been turned away by her before, and Lenna felt terribly guilty when she retreated into herself, burrowing against his side in the bed rather than returning his caresses. Try as she might, each time she felt the least twinge of pleasure, of happiness, it was killed by the remembrance of fire and wind and a little voice whispering _Dracarys_.

She sought solace in watching the waves. Her feet were cold on the wood of the deck, but the planks were smooth against her soles, whether from wear or by care. The salt wind soothed her as it always had, the sight of the multitude of stars constant as they wheeled overhead. Winter had not yet left them, though, not quite, and the air was still chilly and dry.

"You don't belong here."

She smiled at the sound of his voice at her back, wondering if he remembered saying such to her so long ago on her father's walls. He laid his hand on her shoulder and she lifted her own to cover it, leaning back into the expanse of his chest.

 _Choking smoke and lashing flame_.

"No," she agreed with a sudden shake of her head like a horse bucking its bridle. She did not like having no control over what went on behind her eyes. She was exhausted, but she felt better when he was near. "We don't."

He humphed behind her, not knowing what to say, and she tried to smile but it was a grimace, instead laying her lips against his fingers where they rested on her upper arm. Her head tucked under his chin, she could feel the rise and fall of breath and despite the aching pit in her chest.

"What are you thinking?" he asked, and the words rumbled against her back like a lion's purr.

"About Tyrion. About that day. And," she paused, feeling as if her breath was being sucked from her lungs, "about the children." They were fine, she knew they were fine, but she had come so close to never seeing them again that she was haunted by the thought of it. The others, their friends couldn't imagine, couldn't understand, and she had struggled against the intense feelings of loneliness, of wrongness in being away from them, long after her breasts stopped aching and no longer gave milk for Wendel, long after she had held the assurances from her aunt in Highgarden in her own hand and accompanied by a childish sketch of Addy's. She kept that scrawled picture folded up inside her bodice and wrapped in Sandor's handkerchief, her mind aflame with a mother's worry and longing. "I am forgetting their faces."

Sandor growled again, but this time it was in assent. "I know," he said softly. "But when this is over-"

"Will it ever really be over?" she asked, turning to look up at him. "When Jon is crowned, married to Myrcella, then what? Will we simply be able to walk away from them, from the realm-"

Sandor bent and pressed a hard kiss to her mouth to silence her. "We both know that there is no walking away."

He was right. He was horribly, horrifyingly right. She wondered how he could sound so resigned, almost accepting of it. Every bit of her rejected it, railed at her.

She knew she was wrinkling her brow before he kissed the divot in its center. It had disturbed her at first to see the lingering effects of this old habit in her glass, along with the streak of gray that bloomed above her forehead and trickled through her braid, just as it had wound itself through her mother's hair. Adalyn Manderly's brow had been similarly lined, but hers had been the result of mostly laughter, or at least that is what Lenna had always believed. Now she wasn't as sure.

She could never be sure of anything except the man behind her.

"Remember when King Robert gave you that slip of paper?" she whispered, thinking back to the kindling of hope. Her fingers tightened on his as she kept her eyes on the perpetual rise and fall of the sea. It had been a simpler time, a time when both of them had just struggled to keep their heads above the foam, to steal one more breath. It had been exhausting and terrifying then, but now it seemed such a trifle after so many more difficult, miraculous, and improbable happenings between them. Still, she liked to remember that day sometimes, when he had come to her in the library, stepping into the circle of warmth with a tiny roll of parchment engulfed in his hand and an expression in his eyes even she didn't have words to tell. "A keep of your own." Her voice grew thick. "It was all we wanted."

"Aye," he replied simply, fingers tightening their hold on her. "It was. Then."

The tears on her cheeks were so cold they almost stung. "But not now?"

His beard was raspy, almost uncomfortably so when he rested his chin on the top of her head. She buried her nose in the tuft of hair that escaped above the collar of his tunic.

"I still want it," he replied, "but things have changed."

All the planning, all the hoping- she had immense difficulty believing that it was all coming to this, the realization that they would never be free, that it had never been the Lannisters, not really. It was _duty_ , and _honor_ , and _folly_ , and _sacrifice_ , and-

"I can walk away," she whispered urgently. "We can go to Westerlands. Live quietly, raise our children-"

"Lenna," he said lowly, turning her to face him. "You could no more walk away than I could. Don't make me be the one to lecture you about persistence. About doing the _right fucking thing_ ," he continued, an expression of annoyance on his features that almost made her laugh as she thought of all the times she had lectured him on the same. His face visibly relaxed, long hair fluttering in the breeze as he took a deep breath. "Besides," he continued, looking over her shoulder, "I already know what he asked you."

It had been weighing on her since they set out. After the plans had been finalized, as the others had drifted out to prepare to each go their own way, Jon had called Lenna back, and with eyes averted, as if he knew what the asking would cost her, he requested that she accept the honor of becoming his Mistress of Coin.

"I did not give an answer," she replied, her voice a strangled gasp.

"Why in the seven fucking hells not?" Sandor demanded, but there was no rancor in voice, and perhaps even a glimmer of pride. "We both know what it shall be," he continued smoothing his hand over her hair almost defiantly. It was simply braided over her shoulder and still hung well past her waist though the wisps about her face curled tightly from where she had trimmed away the singed strands. His fingers played with them in the moonlight.

"Why did you not say that you knew earlier-" she began, furious that she could hear the tears and irritation in her voice.

"Waiting for you to tell me in your own time," he replied gruffly. "I might have lost an eye, Lenna, but I'm not blind. I thought forcing one more stone on you like that might sink you."

She took a harsh breath, eyes stinging, the truth in his dry, gravelly tone rubbing against the rawness of the wound. Of course he was right, the offer had been pressing against her like a millstone, grinding away at her self-possession. That she could rise each morning and go about her work was a small triumph in every step, in every word and deed, no matter how small. The weight of it felt like the world, and she knew very well that she would accept it, take it on her thinning shoulders despite her objections, despite the piece of her that sobbed silently every time she even thought of continuing on with the burden of that responsibility after so many years of paddling frantically just to keep her nose about the waterline, each unexpected inhalation too brief a gift but just enough to allow her to keep paddling, slowly drowning in the middle of a storm.

"We would have to be part of the year in King's Landing," she said, her words weighted with false equanimity, wondering how she could possibly walk those halls again, even if they were new. The memories were embedded in the very stone itself. Even the thought made her feel as ancient as the rocks themselves.

"And part of the year in White Harbor," he replied with equal impassivity, almost glib. "Or my drafty pile of rocks in the Westerlands. Both, I expect." He cleared his throat brusquely, and when he continued his voice was louder than before, brighter with bravado or uncertainty or both. "Besides. You weren't the only one asked to continue your service to the Realm." He was avoiding her eye, but she simply waited for him to gather himself, just as he had waited on her to find the courage to speak of the terrible thing Jon Snow wanted from her. From them. "He needs a new training facility. The guard is more or less destroyed, and a new Targaryen king will need reliable fighters."

"And he wants you to train them," she replied, not at all surprised though this was the first she had heard of it. Jon had not said a word to her, nor had Jaime, but she gathered her guess was accurate from the way he clenched his jaw. He still would not look at her. Her brow went up though he was not turned toward her to see it. "And you have already agreed."

"Aye," he replied lowly.

"Without speaking to me first-" she started, almost angry.

"Lenna," he growled, turning his eye on her. In the moonlight it glinted like silver. "We both already know your fucking answer." There was no arguing with it. He was right. She did hate it when he was right.

"It is an honor," she said quietly, softening and casting her eyes back on the waves, watching as the ripples and the ridges and the foam faded in and out of each other, pieces of one great moving whole. "I am not surprised it has been bestowed upon you. Does he want you to take vows?"

"Told him to fuck right off with them if he wanted my help," Sandor spat, his mouth twisted. _So he was asked_ , she thought wryly. For some reason beyond her ken, it warmed her. "I've gone this long without being a damn cunt knight, and I'll die before I kneel."

"You'll kneel to make your pledge of loyalty," she said ironically. He grunted in admission, fingers flexing on the rail. She turned to him, reaching out a hand. "Sandor-"

"Aye," he snapped, misreading her. "I'll fucking kneel then, but that will be the only bloody time. Now," he said turning his lone gray eye down on her, "since it's all settled, can we fucking get some sleep?"

His irritation caused her to draw back in surprise. She had not realized the depth of his disquiet, and he was about as inviting as a bear. "You go ahead," she said coolly, "I'll come later."

"No, you won't," he replied, his fists tight at his sides. The shadow along his jaw tensed and relaxed again. "You haven't stayed a night in my bed since-," his voice broke unexpectedly. She looked at him blankly. There hadn't been a single evening when she hadn't gone to bed with him, she just simply couldn't sleep. Every time she drifted, she woke with a start to the glow of flame and the smell of burning flesh. "Is it-" he asked lamely, his voice dying as he jabbed a finger at the eyepatch.

"What are you talking about?" she asked in confusion. Surely, he didn't think-

"My face never bothered you before," he said thickly, "but now-"

 _Oh gods_ , she thought with a bolt of clarity. "No, Sandor." His hands were stiff in hers when she seized them, the long fingers only marginally relaxing into hers. He stared down at them, huge where they lay in her own and her throat thickened. "It has nothing to do with that. Not at all."

"Then why-"

"I can't sleep," she owned. "Every time I close my eyes, all I can see is...all I can hear-"

Her breath turned to gasps and she could not continue. It was too hard for her to put it into words, what had happened that day. Often, in their past, she had wondered why he could never speak of what had happened to him, of what his brother had done, and it had frustrated her. She couldn't help him, she reasoned, without know what had happened, and he patently refused to tell her. Hells, he'd been scant enough with details of the Mountain's death, though Arya Stark had been more than happy to tell the tale for him, but she understood, now, what it was to have something so painful swimming just below the surface of her thoughts that even the crackle and pop of a campfire made her jump, and breathing the merest word of it resurrected it so vividly that she wasn't sure she would outrun the flames this time.

"It has nothing to do with you," she whispered. "Nothing at all. And I am so very sorry that you have thought-" She reached up and laid her hand on his palm and nearly cried out when he turned his face into it with such relief on the unscarred side he would have been more at home on a scaffold than beside her.

"It's nothing," he said, and her breast felt full, a cataract of memory as she thought of the days when it had infuriated her, for his sake, how easily and fully he forgave even the most grievous slight, how unaccustomed to being asked for his pardon he was that it was as if he didn't even understand why it was being asked even when he was the injured party.

She pulled his head down to hers until their foreheads met, the wind whipping his hair about both their faces.

"I am so glad," she whispered, holding his eye, "so glad that you are well and whole and _here._ "

It wasn't until far later, when the lantern still sputtered and he slept, his arm heavy across her bare waist and the hair of his chest tickling her cheek, that she let herself shut her eyes and fall asleep, and even though the flames danced behind her eyes, the steady beat of his heart beneath her ear was enough to tell her that it was just a dream, a nightmare, and that she'd wake again.

The journey was not long enough to prepare her for what she found in Dorne. The woman- and she was a woman now, no longer a girl- who met them at the wharf in Sunspear was grey-clad and wan. Myrcella stood stiffly with her white hands clasped before her, her bright hair covered in mourning, and when she saw Lenna, she did not smile but raised her arms as if she was a little girl again and in desperate need of comfort. If she could, Lenna would have sat down on the rough pier and taken the girl into her lap, just as she had when she was a lonely little girl afraid of her brother and the dark.

She could still feel the hot fall of the girl's tears against her neck when they made their way to Doran's hall, the Prince of Dorne seated on his throne, dressed in deepest black from head to foot.

"Lady Helenna," he said by way of greeting, his eyes barely flickering over his own brother. "And this must be your infamous husband."

Lenna dipped the curtsey due him, grateful that it gave her the opportunity to hide the wry twist of her lips.

"Yes," she replied softly. "May I present Sandor Clegane."

"You are welcome," Doran replied hollowly. He blinked quickly and then glanced at his brother. "Oberyn."

"Brother," the younger prince replied, his own voice dark and shaded by grief.

"You are safely home," Doran said, and the words were laden with accusation.

"I am," Oberyn returned, his eyes again hard as obsidian. "Brother, your son-"

"You shall not speak of him," Doran spat, raising a hand to stop him. He turned his attention to Lenna. "Why have you come back, Lady? Surely, you would have preferred to have returned to your own home."

A furtive glance at Myrcella revealed the girl to be herself questioning Lenna's presence, relieved as she had been to see her. Lenna clenched her hands until her nails bit into her palms in painful crescents. She had not meant to speak so soon on the purpose of her mission.

"My lady is tired from the journey," Oberyn started, but Doran silenced him again. Oberyn stood with his chin uplifted, an unnatural stiffness straightening his spine.

"I am come to make a proposal, my lord," she said, folding her hands at her waist, counting the notches of her spine as she straightened, one by one, until she felt as if she had donned Sandor's plate.

"You would come to demand more of me even than my son?" Doran said, and Lenna's resolve nearly crumbled.

"I demand nothing, my lord," she answered, "and not of you."

"Then what?"

Lenna turned to Myrcella and the girl almost took a step back, wavering where she stood like a river reed in a gust.

"My princess," she said quietly, reaching out her hand and taking Myrcella's cold, slim fingers in her own. "It is to you that I am sent. To put forth a suit for your hand."

"Tristayne," the girl choked, her mouth like a closed bud. She must have been biting her tongue, the way her cheeks pitted.

"It is so soon," Lenna continued, rubbing her palm over her hand. "I know. I am sorry for it. You know I would not-"

"No," Myrcella breathed, and Lenna almost thought it was a refusal. "You would not have come if it wasn't necessary."

"I would never ask more of you-" Lenna started, but something about the young woman's quiet gaze stopped her. The beryl-green eyes looked back at her with unwavering light, even as Myrcella herself seemed to sway. _Such absolute trust_ , Lenna thought, and she nearly wept.

"What is it?"

Lenna took a deep breath. "Jon Snow will be the King of Westeros," she said. "And he has asked me to make his suit for your hand."

"You mean Aegon Targaryen," Doran said from his place. He was leaning forward in his seat now.

"I do," Lenna replied. "He will be crowned at White Harbor. He wishes it to be his wedding-day as well. To unite House Baratheon, which has sat the throne since the Rebellion, and House Targaryen, which has found a new head in him."

"A usurper-" Doran said.

"Lady Helenna would not make such a proposal if she did not think it right," Oberyn cut in. "She has long been a peacekeeper in this realm-"

"No," Myrcella said again, but this time her voice was strong. It reminded Lenna painfully of Cersei's, full of backbone and iron. "She has not been a peackeeper, but a peace _maker_." She turned her eyes back on her old teacher, her old friend. "It will be my honor to do my duty," Myrcella replied firmly. "I listened, Lenna, when you and my mother talked. More than once I heard both of you say that women must be the weavers of peace. I did not know what you meant, but I have seen how you have borne yourself. You were separated from your family for me, from your husband and children for this war. I have heard how Margaery Tyrell, how Sansa Stark, have put the good of the Realm before themselves. Now it is my turn, to do as you have done." She turned to Doran and it was not as a ward asking for permission. "I will go to White Harbor as soon as the preparations can be made."

And so it was.

Myrcella kept to herself for much of the voyage, still wearing her somber grays and blacks, but on occasion she had sought Lenna out, the two of them sitting on the decks side by side while Sandor made himself scarce. As much as he loved the princess, his discomfort in being privy to their conversations was obvious to both of them who knew him so well.

"And he is kind?" Myrcella asked, looking at Lenna with worry. "King Jon, I mean."

"Yes, very," Lenna replied honestly and with a smile. "Your grace, he will make a fine king." It was something that despite the trouble and the turmoil that she wholeheartedly believed. The last thing Jon wanted was to sit the throne. That he was willing to accept it as his duty, and to do so with reverence and with hesitation, only convinced Lenna the more that it was the right course.

"But will he make a fine husband?" Myrcella returned. "My father," her voice dropped, both of them knowing she was speaking of the man she knew as her father, the one who had raised her, "was a very fine king. An affectionate father, even." Her face was drawn and wistful, so like Cersei's but with a depth that hadn't been her mother's custom. A depth and a regret. "But he was not a good husband."

Lenna squeezed the girl's hand in reassurance, thinking of the young man's soft ways and solemn eyes. He was earnest, and brave. And good. "I think that he will be."

"Tristayne-" Myrcella attempted, her voice shuddering and her throat working. She shook her head and gripped Lenna's fingers tightly "He would have been."

"I know," Lenna replied. "And I am so sorry, your grace, that it has turned out this way."

Myrcella looked at their hands in dejection, piled as they were in Lenna's lap, but then she shook her head. "I am not unhappy to do what I must. I understand why it must be so, it's just-"

"So very fast," Lenna replied. "I know. If there were some way to delay-"

"I just wish that I knew him," Myrcella said, swiping a tear from her eye. "Tristayne and I had years to know each other. To grow to _love_ each other. And there's been barely time to accept that King Jon is the heir, let alone that I'm to marry him."

"Time," Lenna counseled quietly. "There will be time, and plenty, once it is done."

Myrcella smiled sadly. "I wish I'd been able to marry as I chose, as you did."

Lenna took a deep breath, wanting so much to contradict the girl and explain that hardship and suffering, but knew that in the end she would not be able to express any regrets whatever for her marriage. Instead, she settled for sincerity. She was a woman born under a lucky star, though much of her life seemed to contradict the notion. "As do I, your grace."

Myrcella was between she and Sandor as they swept into White Harbor at last. She had put off her mourning clothes when the New Castle came into sight, going below the sad princess and returning dressed as she had in past times, in hues of pink and gold that set off her skin and hair. She was so like her mother that Lenna thought it _was_ Cersei at her side, but Myrcella had all of her mother's beauty and none of her coldness.

It was strange that she missed her. The grief for Tyrion had felt natural, and there were many moments where it consumed her to the point of choking on her own tears. She still could not speak at length of what had happened, though Sandor woke her often enough in the night to calm her thrashing, to hold her close against him as her heartbeat calmed and her tears dried. Yet, she did not dream of Cersei, but rather missed knowing that she was somewhere in the world. Or perhaps she missed who she could have been if she'd been more like her daughter, but she didn't know how that would have even been possible.

"We women are the weavers of peace," she had once said, an echo the conversations that Myrcella had overheard and observed, and that Lenna had taken it into the fabric of her character. Strange that Cersei Lannister should say such a thing. She certainly had not lived it, else she had a different notion of what it meant entirely, unhappy queen that she was, trying to bend the world to her will. But perhaps even she had believed it, once, as a young queen with a distant husband who was still trying to do her duty. Though she had not seen its fruits, the rewards of enduring sacrifice and effort even when all hope seemed lost, Lenna did when they docked in her home city, her family waiting for her on the quay: Wynna and Wylla, her father, Olenna Tyrell, Gilly. And the children.

She was barely able to keep herself from running, failing in the last as Addy broke away from Gilly's hand and came rushing to her with shrieks of childish abandon. Lenna knelt down on the landing with her arms outstretched and her daughter flew into them, nearly knocking her over. She could not describe what it felt like to have the child in her arms again, like she had been stitched back together from so many pieces, a patchwork of feeling and flesh again made whole.

"Da!" the girl cried when Sandor reached them, throwing her arms around his knee much as Myrcella had done as a bairn. She jumped up and down on chubby legs, cheeks red in the Northern air. "Da and Mama are home!"

Lenna did cry again in earnest when Gilly put Wendel into her arms, her bosom aching. She felt vaguely ridiculous, knew she was breaking every rule of propriety by not immediately greeting her father, her aunt, seeing to the princess, but nothing else mattered than the look of sheer shock and wonder on Sandor's face when she presented him with his son.

Luckily, Wynna was more than up to the task, stepping briskly into the role of hostess long enough to give the four of them a moment of quiet even among the bustling of the docks. The world seemed to melt away, their little group a happy huddle. Tears were silently coursing down both of Sandor's cheeks, whatever injury done to his eye not at all affecting his weeping, and Lenna kissed the wetness where it glistened, salt and joy on her lips.

He bent abruptly and kissed her in sight of all those on the quay without any regard for decorum, and when she laughed into his mouth, it was a prayer and a thanksgiving.

A/N: It was hard to write this. It is hard to step away. I expect one _brief_ epilogue to come pouring out in the next week or so. Thank you for everyone that has stuck around from the bottom of my little anonymous heart. Writing this has seen me through quite a bit of tribulation in the last year, and I can't really communicate what your kind words and encouragement have meant to me. Thank you.


	68. Chapter 68

Sandor- Epilogue

The ramparts still glowed with pink and rose, the old stone made ruddy by the kind gleaming of the setting sun as it sank into the horizon. He halted in his climb at the top of the stair, whatever errand that had brought him there forgotten at the sight of her standing there looking out on the rolling expanse of their lands and the sea that lay beyond them. She did not seem to have heard him, though he was not as light on his feet as he had once been when he stalked her cat-like through the halls of the Red Keep years before. These days he was more plodding, his legs strong but never having forgiven him for what had befallen them.

Still, she had not noticed him, fascinated by whatever fancy had taken her, what little he could see of her expression wistful but not with sorrow, the corner curled up just enough to deepen the familiar dimple of her cheek. She was leaning against the stone with her hair blowing in the gentle breeze. It was long and thick again, the short, singed curls glossy once more, and he'd not missed how she'd taken to leaving it unbound save for the Northern braid at her crown. She looked years younger.

 _No,_ he corrected himself, _she looks as she should_.

Time had not been kind to either of them, and there were many times that he felt far, far older than his thirty-odd years. Lenna would have a score and ten on her next nameday, and he marvelled that they had seen so much- survived so much- in that space of time, just as he marvelled at it when she pointed out that she had spent half her life at his side in some way or another, whether it was as his charge or his lover or his wife. He still felt heat rise in his cheeks when she talked like that, used those words- _lover, wife_. He knew them, felt them, wanted them, but could rarely speak them despite the children asleep in their beds with their wondrous combination of their eyes and hair and temperaments.

Words had always come easy to her, or at least they seemed to, while they still made his tongue thick and his throat tight even as they fought to erupt from his chest.

They were threatening to now, to escape in a mad, indecipherable rush, but he breathed deep and stilled himself. They never sounded as well as they did in his head, and said nothing he could not show her in other ways, ways she still understood and accepted with gladness. Those he would give to her later as he was in no rush to disturb her.

There was time now, and plenty.

The errand, some minor matter pertaining to stonemason they'd hired to rebuild the Keep, could wait until the morning, or the next day, or even later. There was no urgency in it, not like the urgency that had once made them hot-blooded, though they were still learning how to rest, to tarry.

 _Strange_ , he thought, _when our words were always 'watch and wait.'_

They'd spent much of the last fifteen years watching and waiting, but with such desperation and fear that this peace was still taking some getting used to. It was hard setting it aside, though he'd far rather spend this breath of time on such a fine spring evening watching her unhurriedly, as he might once have from the shadows of the Sept, or from his place on the wall, only now he could do so in freedom.

He inhaled expansively when she turned just enough for him to see her in profile, her face cast like marble in the waning light, the breeze off the Sunset Sea buffeting her gown as it draped her in soft swathes, revealing the mound of her belly where it was growing again. A hot, visceral bolt of satisfaction and arousal twisted in his groin and in his chest. Gods, but he could stand there indefinitely if it meant at last watching her grow round with his pup.

Her cheeks were fuller, her figure rounded out in health like it hadn't been for too many years. She had herself noted the cushioning of her ribs and hips with a slightly furrowed brow and darkened eye. He'd rejoiced in them, digging his fingers into her sides and pulling her to him, murmuring his appreciation until he was quite sure that she was left in no doubt of how much he enjoyed the plush curve of her rear, the dimple beneath her navel and the sweetness of her thighs around his waist. And now, seeing her ripening before his eyes was like watching some lush fruit growing golden on the vine. He wanted to veritably sink his teeth into her.

His thoughts turned wicked at the stray thought, thinking back lasciviously of the two of them making the whelp that was swelling her belly. There was no way to be sure when it had been, exactly, but he liked to think that it had happened _then_. The timing was right, if he was making the account correctly. It had been an evening like this, and the stars had been out already, their new fields a gentle silver, but he'd hardly noticed them as he came to find her, same as now. Their babes had been abed and dreaming for hours, the servants sent away, and he'd found her just like this with her elbows resting on the stone. They'd been in the Keep a week, maybe a little longer, and he'd not been able to keep his hands off her, not even in the brisk spring breeze, and she'd made no protest when he'd made his purpose known. She'd been a ready participant to his lustful astonishment, her neck arched pale in the moonlight, her teeth white as she bit into her lower lip, a flush darkened her cheek as he-

If he kept with that line of thinking he'd spoil the spell she'd wrought around herself, and he wasn't keen to break it just yet, not with her looking so serene.

Serenity, he was learning, was different from peace. While they were no longer hunted by any perceivable threat, the demands on them, and especially Lenna, had not slackened since King Jon had been crowned. Rebuilding a kingdom took time and resources beyond his ken, beyond any of their reckoning, and it sometimes felt like they were working twice as hard as they were at the height of the wars when he was hacking his way through the army of the dead and she was calmly negotiating the impossible.

It was purely by accident that they were not riding to the capital themselves. Jaime Lannister was due to stop over in their Keep any day on his way to King's Landing for the celebrations. The raven had come the previous month. The Red Keep was fit for service, the Sept of Baelor reconstructed, the city itself slowly rising from the rubble and ready to receive those who would return to it. Lenna had read the news with great excitement, face aglow.

Only the babe in her belly excused them from joining the king and the rest of his council for the ceremonies surrounding the reopening of the city. Sandor was doubly pleased with the circumstances. He got to have his family for himself at least until the babe was old enough to travel, and Lenna was not allowed to go further than the Rock in her condition, something that he knew irked her perniciously.

He didn't share her annoyance in the slightest, and that irked her perhaps most of all. She was heartily disappointed that they would not be there for the festivities and the solemnities that she had helped plan for the reopening of the Red Keep. It had kept her busy for so many moons, looking over designs, reviewing budgets, requesting funds. She'd been positively giddy about the installation of sewers through Flea Bottom, which he had heartily teased her for. She had not been perturbed, her pleasure undimmed. Her role as Mistress of Coin suited her, and she had thrown herself wholeheartedly into her role, scribbling away in her books, responding to raven after raven, reviewing proposal after proposal.

Almost as if she believed she could single-handedly rebuild the Realm copper by copper, stag by stag, dragon by dragon. As if she hadn't already done enough.

He was sorry for her disappointment, truly he was. She had worked hard, far harder than he had for all his swinging and hacking and, now, planning. He'd had his own flock of unwelcome ravens, the new commander of the Kingsguard wanting his opinion, he felt, on the placement of every last bloody brick.

For his part, he was glad they were stuck in his drafty pile of rocks with the children and the dogs for a few months more. Daily walks in the meadow with the wee ones, rides with Addy on his saddlebow as he surveyed the land, Lenna's face across the supper table, her voice wandering through the halls as she sang the children to sleep, sang for him by the light of their hearth.

For now, they were just far enough out of reach that he could, for large parts of the day, imagine that there were no duties to call them back to the capital, that the simple life they were sharing was the natural reward for a job well done. A job completed. He could easily ignore the steady stream of ravens that flooded his Keep, the young maester who had been sent from Old Town running through his halls more like a pageboy than a scholar. He could even ignore the ones that arrived bearing his own name, or at least attend to them with a jagged scrawl as quickly as they came so he could stop thinking about them again.

But it was only temporary, and he was all too aware that soon enough they'd take the places that were being built for them in King's Landing: a seat on the Small Council and a high command in the King's forces. His children, he lamented, would be more or less raised at court, companions of the new little prince or princess that Queen Myrcella was already expecting, even her writing breathless with excitement when Lenna had read it to him. A fine honor for them all, of that he was well aware. While he knew that it would not be as it had been under Robert Baratheon, under Cersei, he still mourned a little the loss for his own children of his own wild childhood in the river valley and the wood, ruined as it had been in one afternoon, and the warm cocoon that Lenna had enjoyed far away in the North.

The last voyage to White Harbor had been both a beginning and an ending. The King's wedding and coronation had been a solemn affair, though there had been an undercurrent of hopefulness that could be felt even in the streets. Wyman Manderly had scrubbed the whole city from top to bottom until it gleamed, snowy white in the watery late-winter sunlight, the people just as tidy and fresh-faced as they crowded to see the young King and his bride and their courtiers, to gawk at the heroes of the ballads that were already being sung in the alehouses and the town squares throughout Westeros. Early flowers had been gathered from a radius of some fifty miles to deck the Sept of Snows and the Merman's Court for the occasion, and Lenna and Sansa Stark had stood with the princess as her attendants. Sandor had never felt so proud as he had seeing his wife standing regal as a queen in her fine clothes in a place of honor as she and the Wardeness removed the stag from Myrcella's shoulders and reverently folded it between them as Jon Snow threw a cloak of gray and white about her shoulders.

He'd had the Targaryen arms redrawn since his ascension: a three headed dragon in Stark colors, a visual reminder of who it was he was and wanted to be.

The reforging of House Targaryen would be no mean feat, though the King, who while crowned as Aegon responded to nothing but Jon, seemed bound and determined to write his own destiny. Sandor doubted much of the lad's efforts in that regard were planned, and for that he admired him. King Jon was a serious and guileless young man, and there were moments when Sandor saw Ned Stark living in his slightest gesture: the tilt of his head, the set of his jaw, the faint narrowing of his eyes. Though his claim to the throne hinged on his Targaryen blood, it seemed that the Stark won out. Or perhaps, more judiciously, Jon merely retained a composite of the best parts of his lineage, just as his young wife did.

Myrcella was a breathtaking bride, and when they'd throne open the doors to the Sept, Sandor had seen some of the same slack-jawed admiration he felt whenever he looked at Lenna reflected in the young King's face when confronted with his queen. Myrcella Baratheon had smiled when she saw her waiting bridegroom, her cheeks flushing, and when Sandor had caught sight of Lenna beside her he'd seen the tell-tale shimmering of tears in her eyes and he'd felt the answering thrum of pride in his own. The princess had been theirs for a time, after all, and he wished them whatever joy they could hope for given the circumstances of their marriage. It was a heavy weight, that of an entire kingdom and a dynasty, but if the care and genuine solemnity in King Jon's eyes were any indication, there was yet hope for true happiness in the union.

King Jon and Queen Myrcella were not the only ones grappling with new identities, with forming new selves. They were all still reeling, still learning their new steps in an unfamiliar dance. Jaime Lannister was now Lord of Casterly Rock and no longer a Kingsguard. Brienne of Tarth was no wandering warrior but a respected commander, and Sandor was no longer the Hound and a cur but hailed as something of a hero. Lenna herself was now heiress to White Harbor in her own right, Tywin Lannister's old goal sadly met. Despite her own protests, Wynna and Wylla had persuaded Lenna not to renounce her claim to the New Castle but to embrace it.

When Lenna finally relented, Wyman Manderly had blustered. "Gods be praised that is put to rest. I rather felt you were hedging bets on my grave. Leave your bickering for when I am dead so that I do not have to hear it." While the words had been perhaps a little harsh, Sandor detected a fair bit of relief and good humor in them. They were not so unlike, he and his father-in-law.

Not that Lenna's being named heiress hadn't come with its own set of challenges. It had perplexed him that Lenna had taken the name of his House even after his disappearance, styling herself Lady Clegane in his absence like the name was some badge of honor. He'd always wanted to hide from it himself, and as heiress to a seat like the New Castle, it would be expected for her to retain her family name after her marriage to preserve the line. In fact, it wouldn't have been unheard of for him to take hers in place of his own. Sandor was himself troubled that White Harbor should pass from the Manderlys who had held it for some thousand years, that the New Castle should find itself flying his ugly yellow banners rather than the clean aqua and white.

So, he was bewildered and moved when Jon bestowed additional lands and a title on Sandor in his own right, along with presentation of a new sigil: the merman of House Manderly marshalled with the hounds of House Clegane, the two set side by side on the same escutcheon. Bran's preternatural heralding after the birth of his son was made manifest in the new arms and an altogether new House.

The impact of the announcement, made as it was during the course of adjudication in the early days of Jon's reign, had nearly laid him out in the floor. Jon had called him to stand before his makeshift throne in front of the entirety of his new court without any warning. Sandor had already bent the knee, and he'd been confused as to why he'd be called on so again, but then Jon had made his proclamation, naming Sandor as Lord Manderly Clegane and granted to him holdings that been gifted for the purpose by none other than Jaime Lannister. They would encompass not only the Keep in which he'd been born, but now swept westward all the way to the strand of the Sunset Sea in the shadow of Casterly Rock itself. Sandor had not been able to do anything but swallow and nod and murmur his thanks, his eyes seeking Lenna's across the Merman's Court.

Seated on the dais with the rest of the Small Council, she had watched with wetness gathering in her lashes, her lips tight to keep from crying or laughing, he knew not which, and he had managed to quirk a smile at her in the breath that followed Jon's words. He wondered how long she had known and never breathed a word of it. He was only faintly vexed by the lack of forewarning. There had followed a strange, slowly growing applause and Sandor felt for the briefest moment the keen satisfaction he'd not been able to enjoy on that long ago tourney day, the crowd around him clapping for _him_ and him alone, Wyman Manderly himself slapping him on the back with gusto and a great sniffling before clasping the newly-minted Sandor Manderly Clegane to his portly frame and whispering his congratulations into his son's ear.

They stayed in White Harbor near six months. It took that long just to lay the foundations of the new government, to begin the implementation of the reforms they all agreed need to be made in order for the new King and his realm to flourish. Jon set himself in White Harbor for the time, still hesitant, it seemed, to leave the North, and his Small Council stayed with him. Sandor rejoiced in watching Lenna as she soaked up the time with her people. It was strange, but it seemed that the whole lot of them were some kind of ragtag family.

The Small Council was full of familiar faces, and there were even a few he looked forward to seeing again. Davos Seaworth was Jon's Hand, and Lenna his Mistress of Coin, of course. Brienne of Tarth had been named the commander of the Kingsguard, and Jaime Lannister was to serve as Master of Laws. The young King was, perhaps, as aware as any of them of the sacrifices they had made. After six months at his makeshift court in White Harbor, in payment for their efforts, Jon had begged his Small Council retire to their own homes for a time while the new capital was rebuilt and readied.

They'd travelled south again with the lone Lannister, and Sandor had brought Lenna and the children into to the lands where he was born. Ravens came daily from the king even on the road, sometimes multiple a day, and Lenna studiously and gravely attended to her duties, a job that the King had insisted could be done for at least part of the year from either White Harbor or their holdings in the Westerlands. Sandor heartily planned to hold him to that agreement in the years to come. So, Sandor had left her to her scribbling except when he wanted her opinion, and he had proceeded to take the monies they were both awarded for their service and turn the draft pile of rocks from his childhood into something fit for his wife and their children.

At first, he felt the wraith of his brother on his heels, saw the shades of his mother and his sister in the shadows. He was glad that the hall had been more or less uninhabitable when they arrived, relying on the Lannister's hospitality while the first of the renovations were made. By the time they'd moved from their guest quarters in the Rock, Sanor was proud of the damn place. The outer walls had been almost entirely reconstructed, and there were afternoons when he returned from riding their holdings on a white-nosed Stranger than he didn't even recognize the place. The pall of the past seemed to slip away like fog burned off by a morning sun, and even the peasants in the little village that lay below the keep seemed happier, lighter. They didn't shy away when they saw him coming. The older people dipped curtsies or touched their foreheads to him just as they had his father, and the children looked at him from behind their mother's skirts, but he didn't miss their whispers.

 _He lost the eye fighting to Whitewalkers…_

 _One of the king's best warriors..._

 _Did you hear the ballad about him and his lady? A daring rescue…_

He hardly knew what to do with the sharp, bright feeling that radiated from his chest, from his belly. _Joy._ It had seemed to envelope him completely when Lenna had told him, her cheeks flushed with emotion and afternoons spent in the sunshine bathed meadows, that she was going to bear another child to him. He wasn't surprised, of course, he'd applied himself as studiously to making one as she did to her duties, but it had still brought a great wave of feeling. He'd actually whooped and picked her up around the waist and lifted her, giggling like a girl, laughing deeply until even Lenna was looking at him with concern though her eyes were sparkling.

A new child to look forward to gamboling with through the meadows in the company of his or her big brother and sister. Wendel was toddling on chunky legs now, his early arrival not slowing him down in the slightest from keeping pace with Addy at his age. He was already almost as tall, charming and petulant, too like his father by half. Just that afternoon, Lenna had discovered him in her study completely covered in black ink and making his own drawings on the floor and walls, green eyes bright in his streaked face.

Lenna, at first peeved about the loss of a few pages of her manuscript and a significant quantity of ink, had not been able to stay miffed with him for long, dissolving into laughter and gathering him up in her arms to trundle off for a bath.

Looking at her now, Sandor thought he saw a faint smudge of ink on her cheek, but whether it was from the boy of her own carelessness, he couldn't say. She'd thrown herself in the task of writing down what had happened, what had _really_ happened. Already, the ballads were changing the narratives, playing with facts, making the good seem more heroic and the bad even more tragic than it heartbreakingly was. Jon wanted an honest accounting, and Lenna was determined to write it for him.

It caused her some considerable grief. Often, after the children were asleep, she would sit with him by the fire in their rooms and talk, taking notes as she did so. She'd recount this episode or that, asking for his own recollections, and then scribble away, silent tears blurring her letters and leaving dark pools on the parchment.

The black bloom of ink had again appeared between her thumb and forefinger, just as it had in her youth.

The crease between her eyebrows, though, was now faint, a dim reminder of harder times that only made an earnest appearance when she spoke of _them_. Inevitable when she was working on her manuscript, picking his brain for his own memories. He caught her looking puzzled, sometimes, when she realized she was speaking of the dead as if they were alive. She talked of them all as if they were still there, once or twice to the point he wondered if she'd gone a little mad with the grief, but then she'd smile ruefully and catch herself, her eyes liquid and dark in apology or regret.

Cersei. Tommen and Margaery. Her own brothers. Her mother. Ned and Catelyn Stark. Young King Robb and his queen and their babe.

The rawest wound, he knew, was still the loss of the Imp. That she blamed herself for his death was obvious to him, though he wished she wouldn't. When Tyrion was mentioned, Lenna's eyes still went dull with pain. She had wept the night he had suggested that they name this new little one after him if it was a boy. Oddlt, it had been his idea, which still astonished him when he happened to think of it, but she had promised he could name the next. He'd thought at first that it would bother him to call a child that, to hear and speak that name daily, but the longer he'd turned it over in his head, the more it became the bairn's name. Without Tyrion Lannister and his rather noble death there could not have been another child of his and Lenna's. It was yet another unexpected gift from the lion's mouth.

Or perhaps, it was merely the repayment of an old debt.

Presently, he shook his head from his mind's ramblings and looked again at his wife. There would come a time, he supposed, when all of it would become just another tale. A song. Those of them who had been there- who had grappled and argued and fought and suffered, who had persisted and hoped and wanted and tried- they would all fade away. They would become just another troupe of characters in a story: knights and ladies and kings and queens, monsters and villains, cripples, bastards, and broken things.

They would be written about and sung about, stories told around hearths and campfires, shelved and tucked between the pages of some hefty tome, the brightness of their present dissolving with time, not quite forgotten but ragged around the edges, like old parchment.

It would all go dusty in the history books, in the legends that were bound to be written about them.

But not tonight.

Tonight, the lines were crisp and clean and still being written, the ink not even dry. He was standing with a warm breeze stirring his hair and _her_ standing before him like some heroine out of a fairy story, all dark hair and pale skin and quiet courage. There was a bright moon out, and it cut a shimmering path from the far-off ripple of the sea and up the lazy little river that passed beneath his battlements, spilling across his wife's fair face. He sighed, the mooring line that bound him to her stretching pleasurably between them even as the windlass tightened and drew him closer on silent feet, and an echo rang faint in his ears.

" _If you have tenacity you are determined."_

" _To do what?"_

" _Whatever you decide, I suppose_."

Had they decided? He supposed that they had. They'd decided long ago, at least he had, that he'd go on living a little longer, keep putting one foot in front of the other as long as he could. She had decided the same, in her own way, keeping her back straight and her eyes open, and that damned tenacity had led them both here.

 _It isn't over until it is over_.

He'd thought, when he'd spoken the words, that _over_ was something they both wanted, but looking at her now, he knew that it wasn't. There was no telling what was coming, he'd long ago given up trying to predict it, had always known he'd never control it, but it didn't matter.

 _It isn't over_ , and that was enough to send a breath of thanks to whichever of the gods were listening, if they even existed.

At the sound of his exhalation, she turned to him. She looked back at him steadily, a lock of her hair cast across her face like a frond of sea-dark kelp. He felt a hot blast of feeling course through his chest, not for the first time wondering how in the seven hells any woman, let alone this one, had come to look him in the face like _that_ , like the hero out of same damn tale.

Then she smiled. A bolt of something keen and searing and familiar went through his chest as he watched it spread across her features like the moon as it slid from behind the veil of a cloudbank, softly illuminating and radiant, a hint of color in her pale cheek.

His own lip quirked up in answer as he found himself drawn in her direction. He went to her quietly, gratified when she wordlessly fitted herself into his side and slipped her hand into his, warm and slender. She turned her face into his neck for the sweetest of moments before settling deeper against him, her head cradled in his shoulder. They stood for some time in the near-silence of the night, the only sound the undulating chortle of full-throated crickets as they watched the wind play through the meadow's silvered grasses like the rise and fall of a tranquil sea.

A/N: I have never really written an ending before and man it is HARD. I know it is super cheesy, but I couldn't resist giving in to the happily-ever-after.

Also, love how that was "brief?" Ha. I'd planned about three paragraphs, but too many people requested updates! I have always listened!

Again- thank you to everyone who has given this story the time of day over the last year. I like circles, so it is fitting to hit "complete" on this a year to the day since I started it. There is a bit of sequel in the works for anyone interested in reading it, but it may take me a few months to get it going. That being said, if you see this over on AO3, give us a wave. I have been thinking of posting there as well just to be able to keep writing in this universe on multiple platforms.

Big shout-outs and much love to everyone who has left a review, fielded a question from me, or helped me sort out my business. You've helped me grow infinitely as a writer, and I've enjoyed every harrowing step of the way. Thanks for letting me get my feet wet in a safe space and providing such valuable and encouraging feedback.

Until next time.


End file.
